Last summer, my brother moved to Kobe for his job. Now that we live so close, we decided to visit as soon as he was settled and ready for visitors! Nate had been back to Tokyo for work, but this was only my second time visiting Japan, and our first time in southern Japan.
When Nate and I stepped off the bus in Kobe where James was meeting us, we instantly looked around and asked "where are all the people"? It was a Friday afternoon around 4:PM, and the street was silent, with hardly any cars or people walking around! Living in Shanghai, we are used to seeing cars and people, and hearing lots of noise throughout the day and night. The quiet atmosphere was actually very odd for me at first, but I quickly got used to it.
Upon arrival, we decided to stay around Kobe and explore the area that my brother now calls home. Look at the view from his apartment!
As it turns out, a quick 10 minute walk from where he lives, is a downtown area that is a lot more populated and lively. With such close proximity to restaurants, shopping, and transportation, we had no problem settling in and starting off our vacation the way we love to...by eating! We ate udon noodles, green tea custard tarts, and stuffed ourselves at an izakaya. My brother was introduced to sea snails by his local coworkers and has now become a fan of them. For dinner, he ordered us a round. Nate being the more adventurous eater ate them. Me? Well, I stuck to the sashimi.
Due to our limited time in the area, we decided to focus on a few popular sights in Kyoto. The first sight we went to was Kiyomizu-dera Temple. We definitely lucked out as most of the trees still had their fall colored leaves!
The second sight we visited was Fushimi-Inari Taisha. I'd seen pictures of this sight many times, and was super excited to see them in person! It was definitely a bit crowded, but we were still able to get a few pictures without people in them.
Osaka is located in-between Kobe and Kyoto, so we had no issues making a few stop overs to eat. My grandfather had told me that Osaka had some of the best food in Japan. We made sure to try a few items (gyoza, sushi, tempura, and katsu) while we were there!
We also had a great meal at one of my brothers' favorite restaurants in Kobe. He described it as Japanese fusion food made from farm-fresh ingredients. At first I wasn't interested in going there as I thought it wouldn't be local in flavors. I was wrong! The food was delicious!!!
Incase you are wondering - we did NOT eat Kobe beef. Before arriving, we had asked my brother to find out where the best Kobe beef restaurant in the city was so that we could all go. As it turns out, he said that none of his local co-workers knew of any as it's really just something tourist eat. Needless to say, we did not eat Kobe beef; however, we ate plenty of other delicious food and because there were so many sights to see, were only able to see a fraction of them in the three cities we visited - Kobe, Kyoto and Osaka. I will back in April, and cannot wait to see more!
To view our full photo album from our trip click here, and to see some of Nate's photography (not in this album), click here!
~ Trisha and Nate