二日間の神戸の旅行 - Two-day Kobe Trip (part 2)

Following from Two-day Kobe Trip (part 1)

The next day, we checked out of our hotel, and planned to go to the Herb Gardens. Straight after leaving the hotel, we went to a small bread shop to have a late-ish breakfast. It was interesting little shop in that the main shop was on the ground floor, but two floors up (via stairs) was a small little dining area for customers who want to eat their purchased bread and have juice or coffee also.

After breakfast, we stopped by the station and put our luggage in a locker again, before we headed off to the Herb Gardens. We used the rope way to get there, which is located near the Shin Kobe station, and more or less right next to the ANA Crown Plaza, so access to it is very convenient. After paying for tickets, we boarded the rope way, and enjoyed the trip and the view of Kobe.

Interestingly enough, the weather that day was shifting back and forth between rain and snow while we were out, but when we took the rope way, it was definitely snowing - which made it pretty damn cold to be hanging around outside while we were at the herb gardens. We had a look at the small museum that was there, explaining the history of how flowers were used to make perfumes, and even had samples to smell. We also went up to the upper levels to see a small hall there for plays/concerts and what not, but nothing was happening there that day, so it was pretty quiet there. However, we went outside from that area to take a look at the view outside. Apparently we were able to see Osaka from where we were, but even with the coin operated binoculars there to use, it was still pretty far away. 

After that, we decided to take the path to walk down towards the greenhouse. As it was out of season, most of the flowers and plants were not in bloom, though we decided to take a look and those that were in the process of growing. We had a look at the signs, and found it a little amusing that despite some plants having more than one sign assigned to them, they had two different spellings for the plant - in katakana, surprisingly - such as the Roman Chamomile below:

We ended up at the greenhouse, and took a look around. We not only had some pancakes at the cafe that was there, but we also decided to take a foot bath that was located just outside of the greenhouse. It was great considering that it was cold, though it was a bit annoying that the way it was set up, you could only sit and face towards the greenhouse, as opposed to the city that was behind us.

Afterwards, we left the Herb Gardens, and made our way to Nankin-machi - Kobe's China-town. We walked around, and purchased almost everything we passed by. As we had eaten quite a bit after that, we decided to skip having dinner, and go straight to Kobe Tower - something we were planning to do the previous day, but ran out of time.

Despite having gone up Kobe Tower on a previous trip, the view was still amazing regardless. Considering the price (less than 1000 yen), you would be crazy not to go. I've only been to Kobe Tower at night, but I love going at night, just to see everything light up.

After spending some time at Kobe Tower, we finally decided to take the train back to Kyoto station. When we returned to Kyoto, it was still snowing surprisingly.

(Sorry it took a little while to get part 2 up)

二日間の神戸の旅行 - Two-day Kobe Trip (part 1)

最近忙しすぎたから、神戸の旅行についてまだ書いていなかった。ごめんみんな！

Back at the end of January, just after exams had finished, we (my girlfriend and I) went to Kobe for two days. We had originally planned to go just after Christmas, during the Christmas break, but because she fell ill just before we were about to go, we decided to reschedule to go after our exams finished.

Getting to Kobe from Kyoto doesn't take that long by train, and it takes even shorter time by taking the Super Express. We arrived at Kobe before lunch, and decided to leave most of our bags in the locker at the train station. The reason for this, is because the hotel we booked at (The Meriken park Oriental Hotel) was way out of the way from where we were going that day, and it would take too long to check-in and leave our bags and then go back. Furthermore, it doesn't cost that much to use the lockers anyway, and there was no time limit.
From the station, we headed to Kitano - a historical district of Kobe that is known for having a lot of European-style housing that was built during the later part of the Meiji era, and early part of the Taisho era. Many of the houses are still used for residential purposes, but a number of them have been converted in to museums, so the area is a tourist attraction. As this area is right up along the hill of Kobe, and having been accustomed to the relatively flat surface of Kyoto for so long, it was a little bit of a struggle for us to be accustomed to walking up such a steep surface.

We were out at Kitano for most of the day, though by late afternoon/early evening, we started to make our way to the bay area, looking at shops along the way. My girlfriend wanted to go to a particular bread shop, as it is one of the better known bread shops in Kobe - oh and Kobe is known for bread, as my girlfriend explained to me, which I found very surprising. As a port town, and given my experiences from of Fremantle (a port town) back home, I just assumed it was more known for seafood than anything else - but apparently that is not the case. 

Compared to other bread shops that I've been to in Kobe and in other areas of Japan, this particular shop had a different system in which you purchase bread. Rather than pick out the bread by yourself, you stand behind a rail, and the staff instead will help pick out the bread that you want. According to the staff, this is more to help customers who aren't sure of particular breads, and rather than have the customers handle it, the staff are able to explain about the specific breads, and even offer recommendations based on what the customer is after. I found it to be a rather interesting system, though was curious about how this would operate when the store becomes busy. However, I didn't get the chance to ask that question, so we left with our purchases in hand, and continued towards the bay area.

Originally, we had planned to go to Kobe Tower, but by the time we had already arrived the tower was soon closing (last entry is at 6:30pm). So instead, we decided to go grab some dinner just across from the tower. However, we found that since it was Friday, many of the restaurants were very busy, and others were a little bit too expensive for us students. We checked a map of the building we were in, and decided to check all of the restaurants that we were interested in. Eventually, we settled on one restaurant that had a nice view of the tower, and was decently priced. We ended up purchasing Pizza, and a serving of cheese fondue, which was the restaurant's main specialty.

After dinner, we finally checked in to our hotel. Since we checked in on a weekday, the price was really cheap - roughly $50 per person, compared to the usual which would be over $100 at least. Anyway, as we were being led to our room, the staff was explaining a number of things to us, most of which I didn't understand. However, when my girlfriend asked some questions about water, and vending machines, apparently he responded in a way that even my girlfriend couldn't even understand, but was too embarrassed to ask again. Well, we eventually found out that there were no vending machines at all in the hotel, which was a total pain. However, the room, despite it being a standard room was pretty damn nice. It had a nice view of the city, with Kobe Tower right in front of us. I didn't take a picture of the room unfortunately, but here's one I grabbed from the net to give you an idea of what our room was like:

While there were no vending machines, and the closest convenience store was pretty far from the hotel itself (past Kobe tower easily), there was a small fridge with drinks available for purchase. But, given that it is a fancy hotel, the price for drinks was really expensive, even for Japanese standards. We settled on the cheapest drink available - water for $2. It sucked, but it couldn't be helped.

Anyway, I'll finish this post now, and write up about the next day's experiences in another post. Stay tuned.