Kobe
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008I’ve been living next to it for ages. Passed through there 8 times. But never really stopped to take a look at the place.
Luckily I have a girlfriend that was of the opinion we should visit there.
Kobe is famous for a couple of things.
and . . . euhm . . . other stuff.
As I sit here writing this I realize I didn’t actually even see the Eathquake memorial park. I visited Mt. Rokko and Kitano.
Mt. Rokko is the mountain overlooking Kobe, Kobe is actually built between the sea and some pretty steep mountains. Rokko being the highest of those at 931 metres. At places Kobe is but 1.2 km wide. A steep mountain over a city such as Kobe will make for a good view. One of the top 3 to be exact. (Those of you that have been paying attention: Yes, they have a top 3 for bloody everything). A very gloomy day with very low visibility sorta made us miss that though. Instead, we got some gorgeous cloud/fog movements.
On top of the mountain there is a botanical garden. And probably because of the gloomy weather some of the flowers there were exquisite. An important part of any botanical garden is of course the foreign imports. They usually mean flowers by this, but who am I to stand in the way of original thought.
The next day was spent in Kitano. Kitano is the place where the europeans lived during the Meji restauration. Of course the europeans that came had money backing them and this meant they built their own houses. In other words. In the middle of a Japanese city, you have French, Dutch, Swiss, Danish, etc Architecture.
Before I show pictures it should be known that the europeans left some time ago. What you will see now isn’t a european part of town. It is a Japanese European themepark
I present to you . . . the Danish
The Belgians . . . wait, that looks pretty authentic
Must correct the view the view that they may get something right by intent. Look here!
No, you missed it. Look closer. The right picture, top left person. You know . . . the one in the traditional dutch dress? Damn, I’m going home and photoshopping a red circle around that person. Download that picture and enlarge it . . . .
That’s right, it’s a dude!
On retrospect I should have taken many many more pictures, but it was just so funny I forgot about it completely. Kitano is really a nice place, besides the rediculous European Themepark’edness of it there are actually a lot of really decent little “ethnic” (you know . . . french and stuff) restaurants and a LOT of international stores. The fair maiden’s day was made when she pounced on the last jar of Calve Pindakaas in a store. Next to european food there were also Hallal stores (and you know what that means: Vegetable samosa, tempeh, vegitarian ramen . . . hmmmmmm) and a Mosque (now there is something I’ve not seen here before. And the entire town is regularly patrolled by the Japanese Tourist Helpers.
Other than those headliners we also did some random small stuff like watch Japanese Gambling in action. Watched Japanese euhm . . . tourists in action. Watched the locals on their sunday stroll. Saw the preview to Carnaval.
I was a nice leisurely weekend for me as I got to travel with Raph close to home for a change.
P.S. I also added some pics to the Random Stuff folder. Note the EVIL SHRUBBERY outside my office window. And someone tell me what is wrong with this picture.
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Quote of the day:
Sometimes I think the surest sign that there is intelligent life out there is that it hasn’t tried to contact us
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