Kobe, Japan ...last post we promise!

Kitano-cho area of Kobe is well known for it's European houses. Original European settlers built the houses on a hill overlooking the city. Many of them miraculously survived the earthquake of 1995, and are now (as they were before the earthquake) a popular tourist destination. Many of the houses cost 500yen to tour, but you can always just walk the neighborhood -popular amongst street artists. 

 Be sure to check out blog for other posts about Kobe!

Visiting Kobe, Japan

Visiting Kobe, Day One and a Half 

Living in the heart of Japan there are so many options for places to visit that is can be overwhelming. Thanks to our collective indecision we have put off traveling for some time now, but are finally forcing ourselves to venture outside of Kyoto and Osaka, and see what else there is.

As Kevin's company was closed this past week, we made a couple trips. The first was to Nara (see Nara post) and the second was to Kobe. If you are unfamiliar with Kobe, it is a coastal town on the main island of Japan. Boasting over a million residents and a large expat community, it seemed like a good bet. This one-time industrious port turned tourist destination is home to several great tourist spots, a booming night scene, and is easy to navigate.

We set out with plans to hit up a few of the major tourist spots: Nada district for its sake, the herb garden and ropeway, the nightlife, and Kobe port. Even getting a late start on our first day we managed to hit everything on the list and then some.

Kobe's Nada District

The Nada District sakes are excellent to say the least. If you are unfamiliar with sake and are not looking for the best tour of your life this will do just fine. There are maps all over the district (in Japanese) and each shop has big flags out front. As if the maps and flags are enough, many of the buildings were designed to look like old style, half wood, half white washed warehouses reminiscent of the Fushimi sake district in Kyoto.

Our favorite was Hamafukutsuguru Ginjo Kobo brewery and souvenir shop. The old man, who either had an eye twitch or loved to wink, gave us an abundance of tastings (rare in comparison to the other sake breweries), ranging from traditional sake to umeshu and even a little yuzu liqueur. As if a good round of tasting wasn't enough, they also have sake and vanilla flavored ice cream and even though it was raining out, you know we were lined up to try it!

image of Hamafukutsuguru Ginjo Kobo outside 

Nada Herb Garden and Ropeway

If you are looking for romance and/or scenery, you will find it at the ropeway and herb garden. This was by far Megan's favorite part of the trip. Unable to plan such a perfect surprise, when we reached the top of the ropeway/entrance to the garden it began snowing! We grabbed a quick lunch at their delicious herb garden buffet. Don't snub your nose quite yet, at $15 a head you get what you pay for. There was an assortment of fresh salads, sashimi, pasta, cooked salmon, 6 or so soups and stews (it is winter after all), a large assortment of fresh fruit and mini-desserts, loose leaf "create your own blend" teas, and much more. The service was excellent and the staff being traditional Japanese were fabulous. After lunch we made our way down to through the garden. For the winter season they had set up a small foot-soak tub outside on the balcony of the green house, overlooking the city of Kobe.

View from the Ropeway

Clock tower of the herb garden's main building

They were mainly growing lettuce and winter herbs as it is quite chilly on the mountain side this time of year. Still very well maintained, and accessible by well-maintained brick foot paths (with ramp access through the entire garden).

Green house fully stocked with lush, tropical plants, a cafe, crafts area, balcony over looking Kobe, and much more! 

Outside foot bath; This was fabulous! Absolutely nothing better than a good soak on a freezing day. For a 100yen ($1) you can purchase a small hand towel to dry off as well. 

Terraced herbs and lettuce

If you are a walker and prefer to save the cash by not taking the ropeway, there is a beautiful hike up (or down) from the garden. This waterfall is the main attraction for this leg of what appeared to be an extensive amount of hiking trails all over the mountains.  Access to these trails is most easily found by walking under and to the back side of Shin Kobe Station. A huge map is at the trail head, and following the main trail up (keeping the ropeway over head) and you will be there in no time. 

Halloween in Japan (continued)

The never ending topic, we know. Halloween was a lot of fun in Japan, and we found some extra shots of the holiday. 

Although yummy, this is not like the pumpkin ice cream you get at home. There is a swirl of what tastes like actual pumpkin puree. It's pretty tasty, just not what you would expect from pumpkin ice cream. 

Porta in Kyoto station had a free photo station set up, complete with staff to take your photo with your cell phone! 

We went as a Korean couple, obvious isn't it? Korean couples are notorious for their twin-like dress. Unfotunately in Japan people just thought we were twins or not dressed up at all...

The Hub was a Halloween central! Well decorated and populated by many costume-clad Japanese people. For once it was actually a great place to be. Also to be noted was the awesome waiter who came to my (Meg) rescue when while Kev was in the bathroom, a drunk guy sat down at our table and wouldn't leave! Thank you to the Hub and their awesome staff (even if you are a chain)

Yes, it's totally fine to bring your precious baby to the bar...and yes it's totally fine to let them wander the bar. 

Black face DJ at Butterfly! Because it's totally fine to be racist here...(just kidding...sort of)

Our tiny little pumpkins...Sharpie pen decorated as they were too small to actually carve...

Photos booths in Japan

When you walk around shopping areas in Kyoto, you will see a lot of funny looking photos booths. In the states photos booths are really popular, but very different. In your home country, they may be the same as the states: just a booth with a small camera, and generally pretty dingy. Sometimes at events in the states (weddings, and such) there may be some props provided to hold or wear in your photo. Your photos may come out something like this:

In Japan, not surprisingly the photo booths do so much more than just take a photo. This weekend we had a miserable typhoon hit Kyoto, and we were stuck mainly indoors. The bowling alley we like to go to (next door to the Hub) has a couple photo booths. After minimal amounts of begging, Kev agreed to try a booth with me. We really didn't know what to expect as the outsides look like makeup advertisements. With images of too-much-makeup-wearing, cute girls posing for photos. The inside of the booth looks like a photographer's worse nightmare with a wall of gigantic lights, and a small video/touch screen.

Even if you don't speak any Japanese, you can fumble your way through the directions. When you start seeing numbers flash you know a photo is about to be taken. The screen will give you suggested poses as you take photos, let you pick a color theme, and give you a few other options. Almost every step is timed, so be prepared to think fast. When it asks for your name(s) in Katana, just let the time run out if you don't know Katana and it will move on.

After you take your photos, it will tell you to move out and to another screen. This is where the real magic happens. The booth has a second cubby where you can add all kinds of little graphics, words, and stamps to your photos. Each person gets their own screen, so you can tag team the photos. After adding to your photos, you can go to the print screen on the outside of the box, opt to get digital copies (which you may have to pay for...) and get the printed copies of your photos. Here are the shots from our recent photo booth experience:

Just in case it wasn't obvious, Kev has full length eyebrows, does not wear pink lipstick, and no his eyes are not naturally that large. Mine are naturally pretty big, but definitely not shaped like that. 

 You would never know these gems came out of a machine that looked like this: 

Fushimi: The secret sake city

Having heard that Fushimi was home to numerous sake breweries, we made our way down for a festive Saturday afternoon. We spent an hour or so trying to find information online, and with no more than a link to the Sake museum, and Kizakura (a sake and beer brewery) we set off for Fushimi.

A quick subway/train ride south on the Keihan line and you will find yourself in Fushimi. If you speak Japanese, you may be able to make some sense of the maps around town. Unfortunately for us, we don't speak quite enough to make much of the maps. Instead we wandered around Fushimi for a bit, becoming more and more disappointed.

Continuing to search the internet on our phones we found that there was a brewery on the edge of town, whose name we are no longer able to find online (Sorry!). Regardless, we walked the 15 minutes from one edge of town to the other, only to find the now-forgettable brewery closed to the public.

On the up side, we did find a funky little shop that served sake from a small spigot in the wall. Yes, that's right fellow drinkers -a booze-serving spigot, in the wall of a small, rice-dealing shack.

In addition to a small bottle of sake, we picked up a 200 yen (~$2.00) cup of Umeshu to go. 

Small sake samples, and pricing in the background. 

Filling our sake bottle from a spigot in the wall. All the complaints about Fushimi disappeared -This was totally bad ass! 

Adding a finish touch of gold foiling. Keeping it classy in Fushimi.

Small snack and tasting bar at Kizakura brewery. They also apparently have a stellar restaurant, but we cannot verify this as we didn't try it on this trip. 

A couple weird/interesting items from one of the brewery's mini-museums...

The peeing (or whatever) river creatures seems really popular, as we saw similar statues all over town.