KOBE the Port City Part 1 of 2

Kobe at night

What I like about Kobe is that it gives me a swanky feel of living in a port city. The feeling brings me back to the time when I was in Sydney. On one side there is the water transportation hub and on the other side, a line of shopping malls overlooking a scenic backdrop of mountains. Kobe is smaller in size though, but much more high-tech. Probably people only know about Kobe because of its 1995 earthquake that nearly wiped the city clean of its infrastructure.

New highway infrastructure

The city was rebuilt on a clean slate and within a few years, all of these infrastructures were up and running again, as if the city has just gone out of a terrible nightmare. One may not know of its historical past if you see Kobe as it is today. Perhaps the only give away to its scar is its new-looking highways or the Earthquake Memorial, located at the port itself.

Chinatown/ Nankinmachi

Kobe is well known for its Chinatown (also referred to as Nankinmachi) for the Kansai region. Just like Yokohama functioning as the Chinatown for Tokyo, so is Kobe for Osaka.

Kobe Motomachi is one of the shopping districts in the city

Wai Cheong brought us through the Kobe Motomachi area where it is one of the shopping strip of downtown Kobe and where the Chinatown is located.

In Motomachi, I found a familiar fruit, the durian! For 3 durians, it was selling at 6500yen or about RM210...which was the craziest price I have seen in my life for durians.

Piggy serving hot and steamy pau

Wai Cheong, Angeline, Sarah and myself

In Chinatown, we had the eat-all-you-can Chinese food for lunch. I managed to meet up with fellow Malaysian Angeline Yap (also another Yap), who is studying at the Kobe University. It is a small world for Malaysians in Japan. Somehow people know each other no matter where in Japan and I was equally surprised that Wai Cheong, who is from Osaka, already knew Angeline before this.

Kobe Harborland

Then we went to Kobe's Harborland where they have the distinctive ferris wheel in display and where shopping haven is defined in Kobe. We stopped over at the Earthquake Memorial because that is one of the reasons for coming to Kobe too; to view the historical damage of the earthquake, something that we, Malaysians were fortunate to be able to live without.