So a few weeks ago Kelly and I traveled to Kobe and from my research known for two things; a huge earthquake in 1995 and Kobe Beef™. Kobe is a major port city, one of the first cities to open up after Japan's 300 years of seclusion. We went for the JET Christian Retreat in the hills of Mount Rokko, which we had a nice time at.
Kobe is home to one of three Chinatown's in Japan and arguably the best out of the three. We were visiting during golden week os it was very busy and hard to get around. After grabbing some food at a small resturant, we made our way to Kobe's port area. Like most larger cities Kobe built a tower in 1963 and it survived the 1995 earthquake, that toppled a highway.
This is 50 years old and survived a number of earthquakes.
I really appreciate the timeless design of The Port Tower, I would believe it if someone told me it was built two years ago in memory of the Kobe Earthquake. While we were visiting the port there was apparently a flee market going on Kelly picked up a Docomo-Dake Plush toy. I wanted to visit the memorial for the earthquake. The city of kobe preserved a small section of the port area that was damaged by the earthquake.
There was a plaque describing the lengths that went into preserving this area. Apparently the area underneath was washed out and they placed structural support underneath so more wouldn't be lost. It seemed to me more a reminder of mortality than anything else, Memento Mori.
We took the Rokko Cable Car up the first night of the retreat and it had an amazing view of Kobe.
Kobe isn't exactly a headline city to visit in Japan, it has a what I assume a great chinatown minus the Golden Week crowd. I assume the beef taste great, but I don't how much better it can be because we can get wagyu beef in the states and they also import wagyu beef from Australia.
Because Kelly and I live in Okinawa and the budget airlines, Peach and Jetstar only fly into Kansai and Narita we spent most our first day on trains making our way to Kobe. Which we could have avoided because there is a ferry between Kansai and Kobe Airports that might have saved us 2 hours of travel. Kelly and I spent two days in Kobe made our way to Japan's cultural heart Kyoto.