Day 6: Kobe

Today, while Marina was at school, Catherine and I explored downtown Kobe. The way Marina described Kobe, I thought it was going to be a small town in the country. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It is a cultural center in Japan.

Nankinmachi Gates

Our first stop was lunch at Nankinmachi, Kobe’s Chinatown. You can tell you are in Chinatown immediately because everything seems to be red- huge red gates at every entrance, red signs, red statues. There are a ton of street vendors selling cheap Chinese food.

Then, we went to The Kobe Earthquake memorial park on the coast. Since Japan is volcanic, earthquakes are common. The people expect an earthquake around Tokyo every 70 years, so many of the buildings are built with this mind. It was not predicted to hit Kobe though, so the earthquake devastated Kobe in 1994, killing nearly 40,000 people. With the rubble, they built an island off the coast of Kobe called Port Island.

Right beside the park, it a place called Harbor Island. It is a mini amusement park, and Catherine and I were drawn to the Ferris Wheel. Both of us our terrified of heights, so I have no idea why we decided to go in the “special” all glass booth.

Terrified Catherine on the ferris wheel

It was very windy that day, so the booth was shaking so bad, we barely got to enjoy the fabulous view of Kobe from the top.

Kobe view facing North from the water

We ended up subjecting ourselves to more fear, by buying tickets to the Ghost Mansion. We screamed the entire way through the glow in the dark, fake blood building.





That night, Marina took us to a Ichiban with some of her friends. At this place, you take off your shoes and sit at a traditional low table. Here you eat and drink, and you usually get a snack with every drink you get. Here, I was brought the wrong food, but someone else at the table had to eat it. Japanese never send anything back, and you can hardly get any modifications on your food. This is so different from “the customer is always right” attitude, but I respect it. As a waitress, I can definitely appreciate an order that doesn’t have to be changed!



After dinner, we went to a bar and sang Karoke. The bars in Kobe are very small- about the size of a dorm room. There are hundreds of them packed into skyrises. There were about 20 people at this particular one, and it was packed.



I liked this place because the Karaoke was in front of the bar instead of only in a private room. My friends and I cannot sing, and most of us are tone deaf. It is not the same as Japanese tone deaf, though, which is completely different. It is like they are all tone deaf in the same way. Even the musak we hear playing in stores in Japanese tone deaf.