Kobe is a very hilly town since it is so close to the mountains.
Like San Francisco, many of it's roads are very steep, in addition
to being very narrow like most roads in Japan. It's a bit hard to
walk up and down these things.
Miyako and Takako pose at the Denmark
House. Kobe is a city with much European influence. French and Italian
restaurants are everywhere and many houses with French, German, Italian,
Dutch, British and other european styles still exist.
If I remember correctly, this is a Netherland style building.
Since it was Cultural Pride day in Japan
we got to watch a life Jazz show. This particular park had statues
of Jazz musicians around.
Kobe also has a decent Chinatown area. However, it's different
from the Chinatowns I'm used to. The entire street is just full
of Chinese food carts trying to sell all sorts of Chinese and Japanese
goodies.
After Chinatown, we went to Kobe HarborLand
where we took a boat ride into the harbor and got to see the industrial
sea shore of Kobe. Here you can see the HarborLand ferris wheel.
Here are some large ship yard construction cranes that are used
to build tankers and cargo ships.
An Evergreen (Taiwanese company) freight
ship docked for repairs.
A picture of the world's longest span suspension bridge that connects
Honshu (the main island of Japan) to Shikoku, the southwest island
of Japan.
A fancy hotel built by the water in HarborLand.
A really nice view of the Kobe Maritime Museum
The HarborLand tower. Not exactly sure
what this is for, but apparently you can go to the top when it's open.
