Livin' it up: Kobe style

As you may have guessed from the title of this post, I really enjoyed my time in Kobe. Going out there was a gamble (since there was the looming threat of the arrival of a super typhoon), but it certainly paid off as I thouroughly enjoyed my time there.

When I first arrived, my first stop was the Shin-Kobe ropeway which took me up to the Nunobiki Herb Garden, which was quite pretty and had many different kinds of flowers (and of course, herbs) to see. Many people were even sampling some of the different herbs that they had growing there.

At the top of the ropeway -- cafes, shops, etc.

 



View of Kobe

 Following that, I decided to head back down to Shin-Kobe, stopping at the dual Nunobiki waterfalls along the way.

The Nunobiki Waterfalls

I could have visited the European village they have there, (apparently it has many different styles of European houses),but I wasn't so interested in doing that, so...

Instead, I headed back into the more central area of Kobe and wandered my way down to Chinatown. At that point it was already getting dark, but Chinatown in Kobe is really vibrant- it has tons of lanterns along the streets and many different vendors out on the street selling all different kinds of food, and there are people everywhere: sitting down, hanging with friends and wandering around. It's a pretty cool place.

                               

Next, I made my way down to the harbour area since I was considering going up into Kobe Tower.

Kobe Tower

But instead, on my way there, I could hear some really loud music coming from the other side of the road, so I decided to check that out instead.  Turns out that there was a big Indian festival going on! The music had been coming from the stage where there were many belly dancing performances going on! I stopped and watched for a while, and then wandered around to check out the various food stalls and shopping stalls that were set up, eventually circling back to the stage to watch more of the dancing. Pretty cool event to run into!

This was when the audience started dancing along with the people on the stage

If this video doesn't work, click here to watch.

But that wasn't the end of my night! Oh no, not the end at all! As I was walking back towards my hotel through a fancy kind of shopping area, I came across a small crowd of people who were clapping for an event that had just finished. Disappointing, right? Nope, not at all, because they announced that they would start again in about 15 minutes, and being curious, I stuck around and waited it out (while I was waiting a slightly drunk man wandered by a couple times telling everyone how cool and interesting this event was :P). Anyway, it was definitely worth the wait, as it was indeed a pretty cool event. It was what I'll call a live street painting event. So, the guy started out with two large black canvases/walls and started adding one color at a time to each of them. When he was finished he had two scenes of Kobe. One of the harbor area, and the other of downtown Kobe of the streets near where we were.  It was awesome!

The painting of Kobe's harbor area

Scene of downtown Kobe

If this video doesn't work, click here to watch.

My night didn't even end there! I made one more stop and the Kobe Government Building to go up and take a look at the night scenery of Kobe. It was also quite nice although difficult to take pictures of because of the reflection on the glass from the lights inside. One really cool thing though was that on the mountains they had some lights set up in different shapes, but because it was dark you couldn't see the mountains, just the lights, so it looked like they were floating in the middle of the air!


The next day, I headed out to Harborland, as I wanted to see the monument to the 1994 earthquake that they have there (there's also a section of the port that they left as the earthquake made it).

 

Anyway down at the harbor I also found a big event -- Radio Kansai was holding a music festival! (And coincidentally as I was reading through the list of artists performing, my favourite, ヨシダ ヒロキ was also going to be there, although not until later in the day). So, since it was a beautiful, warm, sunny day, I hung out there for most of the day wandering between the different stages they had set up, listening and watching different performances, going through the food stalls and also taking a stroll through the surrounding shopping areas when there were no artists that interested me.
An excellent way to spend a day, if I don't say so myself!

Kobe's pretty Harborland



One of the groups performing at the music festival

A pretty street in the shopping area of Harborland

Yes, there's a ferris wheel here too

 

  

I took the bus back to Takamatsu that evening and got back to the wind and rain that was the typhoon just starting to hit us. The next day (Monday) which was also a holiday had probably the worst of the typhoon with very strong winds and rain all day long.  But overall, it was an amazing weekend!

To see more of my photos from Kobe, click here.