Zōkyō

Meandering around.

Then we walked over to Sannomiya Station area and just strolled around, taking photos, and getting a feel for the town. We stumbled upon the Akasen district, and walked upon and down the main street a couple of times, dipping down into the back alleys just to see what was there; the same as usual: little member’s only bars, cabaret clubs, love hotels, late night noodle shops, and so on. On our way there, we had asked a few hotels if there was any room in the inn and we’re getting a little discouraged after three or four no’s. The iPhone “around me” app was surprisingly hugely helpful. With it we easily navigated from one hotel to the other, even love hotels, and not to mention bars, attractions and so on. I was amazed about how much info it had on Kobe, Japan of all places. So finally we settled in on a place, took a nice onsen, bought a can of beer from the vending machine, and formulated our plan for the next day.

Then we took a stroll down to Kobe Port.

First stop in Kobe, for some noodles, gyoza, and goma-dango.

Yasuko and I went on three trips recently, the first to Bali, the second to Kobe, and the third to Hokkaido. We had a great time in each place and it was good to get out of Tokyo for a while. As my Bali project is not finished yet, I’ll start with Kobe, which began with a 3 day weekend and Yasuko saying to me, “Lets go down to the Shikansen station with a backpack, some sneakers and film, and a map…no plan otherwise,” which is what we did. When we got to the station, we considered Chugoku, specifically Tottori where I am still dying to go, Kyushu, and Tohoku but finally ended up going to Kobe, followed by Hemeji, and then stopped at Isejingu in Mie on the way home. I love that Yasuko loves to travel despite our ways of traveling being so different.

Anyway, I’ll tell more of the story as it moves along. This is near below Mount Rokkō and all the old consulate buildings, a really cool area of the city.