{"id":985,"date":"2017-03-28T19:48:18","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T09:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/?p=985"},"modified":"2017-03-28T19:48:44","modified_gmt":"2017-03-28T09:48:44","slug":"monday-march-28th-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/?p=985","title":{"rendered":"Monday March 27th 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was up early (just before 7) – naturally Kaoru and Mio were already up, and Yoichi had already left for work.\u00a0 After breakfast Mio took Arisa to school, while Kaoru and I organised things for our next trip – to Kobe.\u00a0 We were fine with just the little suit case again, and in fact thought we must be missing things as it was so much emptier than when we went to Nasu.\u00a0 The difference as I didn’t need my thick jacket, or waterproof boots packed in.<\/p>\n

When Mio got back from dropping Arisa off, she took us to the station.\u00a0 It was raining – just like our wedding day (a light sprinkle – not a lot, but enough to be annoying).\u00a0 We caught the train to Shibuya and then went to get Kaoru’s Shinkansen ticket (I was covered already with my JR Pass).\u00a0 The next train that we could catch (that went to Shin-Kobe, and not a super-super fast one as the JR Pass isn’t valid on them) was an 11.10 from Shinagawa (it was currently 10.00).\u00a0 I suggested we may as well get it from Tokyo as going there would pass the time, and also increase our chances of getting seats next to each other if it was crowded (it starts from Tokyo, and Shinagawa is the second station).\u00a0 So we went with that option.<\/p>\n

After the 22 minute trip to Tokyo, we bought a bento box to eat on the train, and then went to stand in line.\u00a0 They were all fairly short, but there were 8-10 people lined up for each door – and we were still 15 minutes before departure time.\u00a0 By the time the train was cleaned and we boarded, the line was considerably longer, and not everybody could get a seat!\u00a0 So our plan to get on here rather than Shinagawa paid off.\u00a0 We’ll definitely book a reserved seat for our trip back to Tokyo.<\/p>\n

I got a bit of work done on the trip, and we also investigated what to do in Kobe and Osaka.\u00a0 We ate lunch, and enjoyed the scenery, as well as got a little bit of shut-eye.\u00a0 The weather was clearing up, and it was quite warm in the train so I had taken all long sleeves off.\u00a0 I’m sure it will still be cool in Kobe, but may as well enjoy it while we can!<\/p>\n

We arr\"\"ived in Kobe a bit after 2, and put the suitcase in a coin locker.\u00a0 We then walked about 10 minutes to the Herb Garden ropeway and caught the cable car to the top.\u00a0 There were amazing views of the city and the port on the way up, and once up the top.\u00a0 Kobe is a very narrow town – there is not a lot of space between the mountains and the city.\u00a0 The airport is on an island out in the harbour!\u00a0 Unfortunately we didn’t get to see a plane land, but I understand it is a very beautiful airport to land at, with the lights of the city, and the mountain in the background.<\/p>\n

\"\"After a walk around, and a drink, we caught the cable car back down to the halfway station, and we walked the rest of the of the way down.\u00a0 It was a beautiful trail around the dam which provides Kobe its water supply, and past a number of water falls.\u00a0 Unfortunately on the way down I must have passed my limit – I could feel a cold coming on.\u00a0 Whilst I still had plenty of energy on the walk, my nose was running and throat was starting to get a bit sore.\u00a0 Hope I can shake this.<\/p>\n

\"\"It took us about an hour to get down to the bottom, but it was a beautiful hike and lovely scenery.\u00a0 We got our suitcase and decided to catch a taxi rather than train to the hotel.\u00a0 We checked in and went up to our room.\u00a0 Wow!\u00a0 King sized bed!\u00a0 And decent sized bathroom!\u00a0 When we checked in we were also given a coupon giving us access to the lounge – for “Premium rooms” (top two floors).\u00a0 So we went down to check that out.\u00a0 It’s open from 2pm to 6pm every day, so limited time.\u00a0 It was tea \/ coffee \/ hot chocolate, and also an assortment of cakes on a tray!\u00a0 We enjoyed them to keep us going.<\/p>\n

Back in the room I decided to have a sleep and try to start shaking this cold.\u00a0 After an hour or so it was time for dinner.\u00a0 We were originally going to do a bay cruise but I hadn’t received any reply from my email to them.\u00a0 And given I wasn’t 100%, we didn’t really want to spend the money it would cost.\u00a0 So we walked around Kobe looking for somewhere to get some Kobe beef.\u00a0 The town seemed quite small – we were surprised at how quickly we got to the station, based on the distance it looked on the map.\u00a0 It looked like a very vibrant town and a fun one to go out in.\u00a0 We eventually decided on a place that had a Kobe Beef Teppanyaki meal.<\/p>\n

We went inside and it was the quietest teppanyaki restaurant I had ever been in!\u00a0 This was the real thing though – not the Holleywood style you get around the world.\u00a0 We had a number of delicious courses, which included Roast Kobe Beef in the entree, but most of the rest was cooked in front of us on the teppan.\u00a0 Kaoru taught me to say “shashin o totemo ii desuka” (ask if I can take a photo of the chef).<\/p>\n

I don’t normally do “meal” photos, but decided to make an exception:<\/p>\n

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After dinner we came back to the hotel, and I had a bath to try to sweat this cold out, and then went to bed.<\/p>\n

Some photos from the day:<\/p>\n

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The island furthest in the distance is the airport.<\/p><\/div>\n

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I was up early (just before 7) – naturally Kaoru and Mio were already up, and Yoichi had already left for work.\u00a0 After breakfast Mio took Arisa to school, while Kaoru and I organised things for our next trip – to Kobe.\u00a0 We were fine with just the little suit case again, and in fact … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2017-03-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=985"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1026,"href":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985\/revisions\/1026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}