Kansai 2013: Kobe

We traveled to Japan for a family vacation. In part to celebrate my mother's 49th birthday, and also for me to escape work, because it was so stressful! 

We visited Kobe, Kyoto, Nara, Himeji & Osaka over 10 days. Please click the link to get my itinerary around the Kansai region. I have to stress that we did not follow the itinerary strictly (sometimes not at all) because I was travelling with my parents and sometimes we were tired from travelling and skipped some attractions to have a rest/nap. 

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Date of travel: 21-22 September 2013

Hotel Villa Fontaine Sannomiya

Hotel Villa Fontaine

Address: 4-1-4 Asahi-Dōri, Chūo-ku, Kobe City, Hyōgo 651-0095 Japan,

神戸市 中央区旭通4-1-4

Phone: +81782245500

Email: kobe-s@villa-fontaine.co.jp

Access info: http://www.hvf.jp/eng/sannomiya.php

It was indeed a 3 min walk from the JR station to the hotel. However, we got terribly lost and the 3 mins walk ended up a 20 min walk. After connecting to WiFi and opening Google Maps, we managed to find our way to the hotel. The directions that was on the hotel's website wasn't very clear. We tried to use landmarks to position our direction, but to no avail. So basically, after you tap out from the JR station and turn right, you will see an East Exit sign, turn left and walk along the pathway/shops until you reach a bus terminal. Continue walking until you see a tall silver building. Take a look at the photo below, the silver building in just behind the red brick building. That is the one.

The whole hotel is nice and cozy. Apparently, my mother booked the wrong room. We got smoking rooms instead of non-smoking rooms, but it was fine as they provided air-purifier cum ionizer in the rooms which removed the annoying smoke smell in a few hours! (I know it can be done because I work in a hotel too!)

On the service side, I felt that they weren't really warm and genuinely caring. It felt like they just did whatever they're suppose to do at check in and that's it. I don't know if that's cos I work at a luxury property and I expect the same type of basic service? They don't even sell stamps at the Front Desk. I was quite disappointed at that though. They asked me to go to the convenience store, paste the stamps myself and than they will help me mail it out. But I can't complain, this is what we're paying for I suppose.

Other than that experience, everything else was alright.

Meriken Park

Meriken Park

It is relatively easy to find our way there. There are plenty of maps and signage once you've come up from the subway station. It is nice and cooling with gentle breeze, whereas the city area was scorching hot! Perhaps the weather became cooler as the sun was setting.

Kobe Port Tower

Opening hours: 9:00 to 21:00 (Admission ends 30 minutes before closing.)

Admission: 600 yen (tower only), 800 yen (tower, Maritime Museum and Kawasaki Museum)

Kobe Maritime Museum and Kawasaki Good Times World

Opening hours: 10:00 to 17:00 (entry until 16:30)

Admission: 500 yen (both museums), 800 yen (both museums and Port Tower)

Kobe Port Tower

The Kobe Port Tower is also located in Meriken Park.  The park was devastated by the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake. There were supposed to be signage and boards which told the tale of the earthquake and its destruction,  and also an area where they preserved a section of the damaged sidewalk. Unfortunately, we did not manage to find it, nor any signage which educated us with the earthquake. It was quite disappointing. Perhaps we were too tired and the sun was setting fast, so we just decided not to look for it anymore and just head over to Kobe Harbourland.

We didn't visit the museum as it was getting late and we missed the last entry into the museum.

Kobe Harbourland

Kobe Harbourland

It is a shopping and dining area which is just a short 10 mins walk from Meriken Park. There's also a Giant Ferris Wheel which is so beautiful at night. There are many shops and restaurants with all sort of cuisines from German to Traditional Japanese fare. There is even a cruise ship restaurant and a carnival that was going on. It reminded me of Oktoberfest, but I wasn't too sure if it was part of Oktoberfest celebrations as it was still in September. Nice place to walk around to look for small knick-knacks and souvenirs.

Lunch: Shingen Restaurant

Shingen Restaurant

We decided to dine here for lunch as we were waiting for check in time and it was very close by the restaurant. They served beef with almost everything, which was a problem as my Father doesn't consume beef. We ordered Garlic Rice for him, but they added beef. We had to change it to Pork  instead. There was some communication's barrier, but they had a Chinese staff and so we communicated well with him.

What irked me the most was that they took back the bowl of beef garlic rice and changed it to pork garlic rice for us. We told them it's alright if they want to charge us the beef garlic rice and just leave it on the table, the rest of us will eat it, but we would like 1 more bowl of pork garlic rice. However, they took the beef garlic rice back, and they charged us for it! We did not realize that until we left the restaurant and my father didn't want to pursue the matter. The whole meal cost us 5,700 yen! (SG$72/US$57) which was very expensive! We did not order any BBQ meat items and just ordered from the lunch set menu. Throughout our stay in Kobe/Japan, we ate a lot, but none was as expensive or not as worthy as this meal.

Dinner: Ryu-en

Ryu-en Restaurant

For dinner, we ate at Kobe Harbourland. Ryuen served Kobe Beef (at reasonable prices too). Kobe beef is so tender, juicy and sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet! We had BBQ Kobe beef (3 servings), some seafood, pork, buckwheat noodles, and sake and it costs us 120,000 yen! (SG$152/US$122) It wouldn't say it is expensive, since we had 4 servings of meat plus seafood and sake!

I LOVED EVERY PART OF THIS MEAL.

Kobe is just a small little port town. Sadly, we were all very tired from flying (we landed at 9am from an overnight flight), and we didn't venture far. I enjoyed Kobe nonetheless. Perhaps, if you're staying in Osaka or Kyoto for a few days, you could do a day trip to Kobe instead and enjoy the wonderful taste of Kobe beef!

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Check out my other posts about Japan: Kansai Region here:

• Kyoto
• Nara
• Himeji
• Osaka (Coming soon)