Kobe

Kobe is just a hop, skip, and a jump down the coast from Osaka. It's home to the fabled Kobe Beef, a trademark type of Wagyu beef that is arguably the best in the world.

I sure picked the right hotel here. For $100/night, we have a spacious room in a central location, amazing bed, and free drinks and snacks for up to 3 hours each night. Damn.

We got to check in early and went to the hills on a gondola for the Kobe Nunobiki Herb Gardens & Ropeway. The views were amazing and the garden was top notch.

There was a horrendous earthquake here in 1995 that killed thousands. They've had 30 years to rebuild and there is still lots of high rise development going on here. Harborland is one of the results of billions in investment dollars. It's a large shopping area on the water. There are tour boats and a large park, along with a Ferris wheel. Nearby is the Kobe earthquake memorial which describes the event and has video and photos showing the devastation. We walked home through the small but vibrant Chinatown.

We're in Kobe, so why not splurge on the best steaks in the world? We went to one of the oldest steak houses in town (Mouriya Honten) and went all out for dinner. It was the most expensive meal we've ever had, and probably the best. A personal chef prepared a Kobe sirloin steak along with a non-Kobe Wagyu steak. Both were melt in your mouth amazing. I didn't notice too much difference between the two, to be honest. You don't need a knife for these steaks, they are so tender and marbled to perfection.

The next morning, we toured the Kitanocho neighborhood. It's where foreigners traditionally lived and many of them built houses like in their home country. We went into a couple from the early 1900's.

Lunch was at a different Kobe steak place. This one was a yakiniku restaurant. That's a Japanese-style BBQ restaurant where you grill your own steak and vegetables at a table with a built-in grill.  It was great, but not as good as last night's meal. But, it cost 1/4 of the price! And it's still a Kobe steak.

On the way back to our room, we stopped into Ikuta-jinja Shrine, one of the oldest Shinto shrines in the country.

In the morning, we took the autonomous (no driver) Portliner monorail to the airport on a man-made Island in the bay. We flew to the island of Kyushu on SkyMark, a low cost carrier. It was on a new Boeing 737 and cost us $70 each with luggage. A bullet train would have taken much longer and cost more. Our destination is Kagoshima, a city on a bay across from a very active volcano.

More photos and videos are here.
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