My wife’s (Thuong’s) tourist visa time was running out in Japan and she was set to depart back to Vietnam from Kansai airport, so we decided to stay in Osaka for the weekend before her flight. Saturday’s weather was looking to be really good, so we decided to do a day trip to Kobe, which was only a short train ride away from Osaka station.
I had been to Kobe once before, but only for a brief stop to meet up with a friend, and this was Thuong’s first time to Kobe, so we were really excited to check it out and see some of the local attractions. I had heard from many of my students that Kobe is a really nice place, and that was not an understatement.
The main port is right by the main stations, and the mountains are really close as well. A perfect mix of city, ocean, and mountains.
Kobe ChinaTown 南京町 (nankin machi)
After checking out the port area for a bit, we quickly made our way to the top destination on our list, Kobe’s Chinatown.
The place was packed to the point that we could barely move.. Mostly because it was the Golden Week Holiday weekend, so it was more busy than usual, but we were still able to quickly find some good street food.
Most of the places seemed to be selling more or less the same stuff, but I’m sure there’s some more hidden gems lurking around somewhere.
After lunch, we continued wandering around and found out that Kobe has it’s own Y’s Road branch. Y’s Road is one of the larger bicycle shop chains in Japan, but up until now I’d only been to the Nagoya branch, so it was exciting to check out the Kobe branch.
Discovery of Nunobiki Waterfall
After running out of places we wanted to go to, I convinced Thuong that we should head over to the mountains and try to find a hiking path since it was so close. The reluctantly agreed, and off to the mountains we went.
To our surprise, there was a hiking path that started right behind Shin-Kobe station, which ended up being a pretty awesome path along a river leading up to multiple waterfalls, including Nunobiki Waterfall (布引の滝).
The view from the top of the mountain was also really great (check out the video), and we were able to soak it all in taking the chairlift down the mountain back into the city.
Night View
Kobe is also famous for it’s night view, so we of course went back to the port and took a bunch of photos / selfies in our bright neon TWC Shirts.
Sadly, Thuong is going to be gone back in Vietnam for the next month, but hopefully she will be able to get her visa application to come back to Japan processed quickly. This day trip to Kobe was a great way to spend our last little bit of time together 🙂
