Friday, July 11, 2025 - Kobe

 Karin and I began our day blogging and checking email. Office email is still her responsibility, and we learned that Kenji had a business conference call earlier. The beginning of days with family is a distinct change from days' beginnings with Rick Steves and Road Scholar, and the hotel amenity coffee latte is respectable. 

We breakfasted again at the hotel bakery/pastry cafe. This time I selected what was called a chicken salad sandwich.  It was lots of pieces of chicken with lettuce and a tasty sauce in a toasted baguette. I saved half to eat later.

Leo was our metro guide today.  We had one transfer from the metro system to the local train system at the Osaka train station. What is great is that the Suica card is useful for train and bus travel throughout the country. The exception is the bullet train, the Shinkansen, for which tickets must be separately purchased. The train ride from Osaka to Kobe revealed green mountains in the distance, closely placed small one-storey homes, andL tall apartment buildings.  It was about a 45 minute ride.  

In Kobe we followed Leo's guidance about 15 minutes to  a very small cafe, called Jesus Pizza. Aparently it was begun by a Japanese person who discovered pizza in New York and brought it to Kobe.  We each selected from cheese, pepperoni, jalapeno and honey B - a combination of Canadian bacon and honey. I chose the latter, along with oolong tea.  It was very tasty and a happy way to begin our visit to Kobe. 

On our way back into the central part of the city we visited a large shrine and followed the Shinto custom of showing respect and reverence, i.e. walking through the entrance gate three times and bowing each time after cleansing our hands at a specially designated well, and this one was decorated with flowers, and coming closer to the entrance  with bowing and clapping, and placing coins in the designated box. I learned that the iconic gate is the entrance from the human to the spirituaal world. I like that.

We now felt the heat and decided to take an uber to the port and memorial to the earthquake of 1995. It was a powerful story with remnants of the destruction as well as photos with short descriptions and a video describing the event and reconstruction highlighting specific area of the port. I am impressed with the changes which have been made to the port area and which continue.

After a botanical lemonade at a nearby cafe we decided to retun to Osaka earlier than planned, for the clouds and forecast indicated a thunderstorm.  After cooling down back at the hotel we left early evening in the rain to a part of Osaka called dotonburi which has lively night life with neon signs and street vendors offering food.  It was crowded, noisey, and very warm. I purchased and ate some dumplings and chicken on skewers. Karin had a crab-filled baobun.  The guys walked further to find something to eat. After a waffle ice cream we watched the baseball game with the Tigers versus the Swallows. They were playing in Tokyuo on wet ground, and their uniforms showed that.

And that's how I fell asleep.


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