Shaylynn went Kansai

While I couldn’t tell you exactly how to get there if I tried, as even the people I was with were a tad bit confused from time to time.  We first headed toward Osaka before eventually making our way toward Kobe.  The ride to Kobe is not to bad, but it is still a distance.  This is something to consider if traveling to Kobe.  It is not a next door neighbor to Osaka in the same way that Hirakata is.  When arriving to visit the area we went to, you can get off at either the station at Sannomiya or the Kobe Station itself.  We stopped at Sannomiya.

From this large Eki, you can travel to several interesting locations in Kobe.  Most main attractions are within walking distance.  Though considered I was a little dismayed by the mountainous terrain.  It’s large hills makes the walks a bit more difficult, so that might be something you want to keep in mind if visiting.  The first location we ended up heading toward was Europe Town.

The mountain going up To Europe Town.

They call this place Europe Town because the shops and other local architecture resembles that of Europe.  It felt almost like a heritage collection though, in all honesty.  There were many buildings, including a starbucks, that looked very European.

The Euro heritage style Starbucks.

As we came into the area, I wanted to rename the area.  Because instead of being completely overtly European like I had expected it to be, it was more like a wedding town.  Very beautiful locations though for getting married.  The streets seemed to be lined with places to reserve your wedding at, wedding dress boutiques, and more.  Further down the road, another area that lead up some stairs, headed toward a very beatiful area with a Japanese Shrine.  I don’t believe I ever heard a name, but it’s very obvious when you come upon this place.  The stairway looks like it’s never ending going up into the trees, and up through the mountainous terrain.

The stairway to Ten.

We climbed to the top of the shrine, we you could see the whole area from very nicely.

On a route past the shrine, there was a small very Rococoesque feeling area where a monkey was performing for a crowd of tourist, painters sat on the side near the trees and buildings with work on sale near the show, statues of men near fountains playing instruments like trumpets seem to pop up from time to time, and there was a very notable German house on the side that seemed to be a museum that you could enter and look around in for a small cost.

After leaving Europe Town, we headed back to Sannomiya Eki, to meet up with some more friends.  There were quite a few people dressed up around the area by the time we got back.  It was close to Halloween, so many people were probably heading to Halloween Party destinations.  Once we met up with our friends at the station, we headed back out.

We walked through the street market, which seemed smaller than other street markets I’ve seen, but very wide.  The stores we very interesting.  There were quite a lot of clothing stores which had different styles than the Osaka area.  Not terribly different, but enough to note on and might I say was a bit refreshing.  I did a little winter shopping myself as it had been getting colder recently.

We were on a mission though, we were headed toward the harbour in Kobe.  It was quite a walk, though we did stop to eat dinner in between, which took twice as long as there were too many of us and nobody could decide on food, so we ended up splitting up for a good hour or so.  After which we continued on our path.  We eventually reached a place called Mosaic, which is apparantly an entertainment area with food and other such shops.  However, what caught our attention was the arcade.  After playing, “How many people can you stuff in a Purikura booth?”, we got sucked into the games for another good half an hour or so.

But when we finished, we finally got captured by the beautiful lights of the harbour at night.  There we all kinds of lights glowing in the distance.  We stopped there for a long while to take photos and taking in the cool harbour breeze.

We took pictures from the edge of the Harbour.

When we went back, we went through Harbourland, another area with shops and such, which probably would have been more lively if not for the fact that everything seemed to be closing down.  But they had a marvelous light decoration inside, as well as some other interesting things to look at regardless of if any of the shops were still open.

We decided to head toward the other station in Kobe since it was, by then, far closer.  So we headed to Kobe Eki to head back.  The area we went through seemed almost maze like, but it was really neat.  I’m not sure even how to describe it.  If you get a chance, you should definitely take a gander at Kobe if you visit Japan.  There is, of course, even more to Kobe that we weren’t able to check out, such as China Town, but maybe next time.  I highly reccomend a visit to Kobe it to anyone and everyone.

~ by Shaylynn on .