Dave Hippler

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.

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We took the Keisei Skyliner train from Tokyo Narita airport to the Ueno station. I booked a room in that neighborhood because it seemed so convenient coming direct after a long travel day. I had no idea that there were so many restaurants and bars in the neighborhood. We visited many other neighborhoods and we found ourselves wanting to go back to Ueno for dinner and drinks instead of overpriced tourist neighborhoods. It's next to a very large park full of museums and that was pretty convenient too.

At the airport we bought our IC card and topped it off with money and grabbed cash at a 7-Eleven ATM. IC cards, or integrated circuit cards are debit cards that you have to buy and top up. It's a strange way of doing business but they're not really into credit cards as much here. You can use your card for transportation, snack machines, and most stores and museums will accept them also. There are IC machines at every bus and train station and you can check your balance or get your money back whenever you want.

7-Elevens are everywhere and kind of an institution in Japan. What used to be an American company was purchased by the Japanese in the '80s and they really ran with it. If you're on a low budget you could get everything you need at 7-Eleven including hot meals.

We experienced some jet lag and I found myself walking around from 3:30 to 5:30 a.m. the first morning. Obviously Tokyo is an incredibly safe city. Trains stop running at midnight and don't start until 5:00 so it was fun seeing the drunks stumble into the train station after waiting for the first train home. If you missed a midnight train while partying then you just stay out partying for 5 more hours!

We stayed at a business Hotel chain. The room was ridiculously small but lodging is about the only expensive thing here. Food and drinks are really inexpensive and good value. The Dollar and Euro are really strong against the Yen right now.

Over 5 days and nights we hit most of the major neighborhoods and sites. Obviously, we just scratched the surface. It's an amazing city and kind of mind-boggling. I've never seen such a clean and quiet city that's this big. By many standards it's the largest city in the world, but that depends on how you measure it and how far out you go.

Here's a rundown of some of the major things we saw:

The Imperial Palace area surrounded by a peaceful park. I had to see Budokan, the martial arts and concert venue nearby. It's where Cheap Trick recorded their live album in 1978.

Tokyo National Museum - a fascinating collection of historical objects from Japan's history. I really love the exhibits on their sword making and the samurai armor.

Senso Ji Temple - an Instagram "must see" temple. It wasn't too crowded when we went on a drizzly day. It was our first temple in Japan.

Tsukiji Outer Market - this is the former main fish market in Tokyo. The fish auction market has since been moved farther away but the old market is now a tourist area for overpriced sushi and Wagyu beef. It's a lot of fun though.

The Kabuki theater museum near the main Kabuki theater of Kabuki-za. It gave a great description of the Kabuki art form.

Shibuya Scramble - Wow. We went to this world famous pedestrian intersection at night. It's the busiest pedestrian street crossing ever. We also went into a huge electronic store. It's s crazy how many people collect things here. There's floors and floors of collectibles: plush toys, plastic toys, manga characters, models and on and on. I don't get it but some people travel around the world to come here for this kind of thing.

Harajuku - this is a trendy clothes shopping area. Clothes with English language on them are still pretty popular. Fashionistas galore....

Shinjuku Golden-Gai and red light district of Kabuchiko - Golden Gai is a back Alley bar area. It used to be cool years ago but now it's an overpriced tourist trap. We thought we'd have a few drinks here but there's like a $10 cover charge to sit in a ridiculously small bar that holds five to seven people. Locals stopped coming here. 10 years ago Japan had 4 million tourists a year. Last year they had 40 million. I think they're sick of us, but we've experienced no negative interactions.

We walked through the red light district to get a train and that was interesting to say the least. They have bars full of young men with lots of makeup to flirt with girls. I thought they were gay bars but maybe they're both? The bars in this area are run by the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia. We took our train back to Ueno for dinner and drinks for about 25% of the price.

Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building - the city hall here is in 45 storey twin towers and they have free observation decks on top. On a clear day you can see Mount Fuji but unfortunately there was cloud cover in that direction. Views of the rest of the city were great.

Akihabara - A trendy neighborhood for toy, manga and electronic stores. We stopped in Taito Station, a video arcade on steroids. Interactive games are popular where you dance or play a drum set, guitar or Japanese Taiko drums to a video game. This neighborhood is really popular with cosplay kids. It also has dozens of maid cafes. It's such a strange thing. Young women dress up in maid costumes at these cafes to serve you meals or just coffee and dessert. The customers range from perverted old men or moms taking their daughters out for a special treat. Prices are high and you get a Polaroid photo of you with a maid posing. Most of them will do a song and dance for your table also. We skipped it! Bored maid touts stand in the street handing out bills for their cafe.

Street style food vendors or full restaurants and bars are everywhere. Vending machines are on almost every corner and you can buy all sorts of hot or cold drinks for about a dollar each. Cheap and delicious food like Yakitori skewers, sushi, wagyu skewers, Tonkatsu pork cutlets are what we've been eating. I just love that we don't have to carry water because there's a vending machine nearby at all times.

We did a lot more sightseeing and those are just the highlights. We're averaging about 9 miles a day of walking. Everyone is pretty fit here because the food is healthy and you have to walk a lot to and from buses and trains and go up and down steps all the time. It's exhausting but fun. I definitely want to come back.

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