Kobe

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February 10th 2008

Published: February 10th 2008

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dancing lions!

xamena

snowy street

the snowy street as we walked towards makino station

to make the most of the 3-day weekend, i went to kobe with some of my friends! we had planned to stay in kobe the whole weekend because there was supposed to be stuff going on to celebrate the chinese new year. but, like usual, things didn't go exactly as planned...

first of all, i walk out of the seminar house and guess what?...it's SNOWING! a lot too. i wasn't very happy cause that meant it wouldn't be a very nice day for walking around and doing things. that and the fact that i had to ride my bike to seminar house 4 in the snow. and i can't hold an umbrella while i ride my bike because (a) i'm not that coordinated and would probably crash and (2) it's illegal! i don't want to get arrested. but mostly for the first reason cause i've see people riding their bikes with an umbrella before. but anyway, by the time i got to seminar house 4 my hair was all wet, and anyone who knows me should understand my problem with that! and i was cold too. so once everyone is there (me, leilani, ben, taheer, and lauren) we start walking

park

the park looked really pretty covered in snow

towards makino station. we decided not to ride our bikes since ben didn't have one, and plus we could save money by not having to park them. so we got to walk in the snow for about 15 minutes. it was kinda nice to see the city with snow cause it was actually sticking on the ground. we passed the park and it was really pretty! it was the most snow i've seen in a long time. and i was actually surprised that it snowed cause i've really been looking forward to spring and the weather getting warmer. but no, apparently it's still winter here!

ok, enough about the snow!...

well we made it to the station and took a couple of trains (i can't even remember all the ones we took!) and ended up in kobe somehow! oh and on the way we met some of taheer's friends, reggie and some other guy with a french-sound name, at the station and they came with us. when we got to kobe we met up with one of reggie's japanese friends and he helped us find our way around. we find a coin locker to put our bags in

walking in the snow

taheer, lauren, and ben walking in the snow. poor taheer had a layer of snow on his head by the time we reached the station lol

for the day and then go to a little restaurant to eat lunch. it was really good, i had something with rice and meat...and the best part is that it was very yasui!! after lunch we head to a little shopping strip. we split up and agree to meet in an hour. me, leilani, and lauren go on our shopping, and the guys go who knows where lol. so we go into a ton of stores, but we notice that there's nothing that we really like in any of them. as we do more shopping, we start to see that kobe definitely has a different style of fashion. things there were more funky and really "japanese" lol. i don't know, just not things i would wear. so we were really disappointed and it put me in a bad mood. plus it was really cold and so it wasn't fun being outside. so we ask reggie's friend to take us to an indoor shopping area, so we got to some huge shopping area that's semi-inside, but still not warm. we split up again, with me and leilani going to a department store. lauren and taheer went to find her a new

on the train

our reflection in the window of the train. that japanese guy was hitting on lauren lol

sim card cause she lost hers while we were shopping, and reggie, his friends, ben, and this japanese girl siyaka go somewhere else. in the department store me and leilani found some cute things but they were expensive (i think all the sales are starting to end unfortunately). and then we found a lolita level in the store (lolita is japanese goth) so that was interesting and kinda scary! after that store we walked around the rest of the shopping are but still didn't find anything we liked. by then i was really tired, so we headed back to the cafe where we were all supposed to meet. once everyone came back we asked siyaka, since she's from kobe, what we should do there. she said there's a harbor nearby that's really pretty, so we decide to go there. oh and apparently ben and them went to do karaoke while we were shopping, and from the video he showed me it looked like a lot of fun! i still haven't gotten to do karaoke yet, but soon...

so we start walking and eventually we reach china town. since it's on the way to the harbor we decide to stop

lunch

eating lunch in kobe!

there and look around, cause we did want to see some chinese new year celebration stuff. china town was so pretty, especially at night with all the lanterns lit up! and we heard some commotion going on down the street, so we go to check it out and there's some performance going on! there were people in the lion costumes doing a dance to music played by drummers. it was so cool! the lions were so cute, and those costumes were amazing. the performance lasted maybe 20 minutes, and i enjoyed every minute of it! oh and while we were waiting for the show to start we made some new friends! ben just started up a random conversation with these 3 japanese girls in the crowd (like he always does!) and we started talking. he told them i was cold and one of the girls gave me her hand warmer pack, which was very nice of her. then we took some pictures with them. i tried to give the hand warmer pack back to her but she told me to keep it! i just thought it was very nice for a complete stranger to do that. but i've found that

kobe

a street in kobe

most japanese people are very friendly like that. they'll go out of their way to help you. but sometimes you have to initiate the conversation or ask for help.

well after the performance ended continued walking towards the harbor. kobe used to be one of the main ports, and that's why the area is very westernized. about 10 minutes later we get there and it was absolutely beautiful! the skyline at night, and the boats sitting in the harbor, the lights, it was all very beautiful. across the harbor was a little shopping area called mosaic and a tiny amusement park with a ferris wheel that was lit up. then on the other side of the harbor there was the aquarium and the huge port of kobe tower, which you could go up in...but it was closed when we got there. the harbor was a very romantic place, though. we noticed a lot of couples there!

after taking some pictures of the harbor we walked to the mosaic shopping area and looked around. there was an arcade and a bunch of clothing/shoe stores. leilani found some cute boots for only 2100 yen! i actually didn't buy anything in

more kobe

another view of kobe

kobe..well except for this blue jacket i found at a store just outside the train station! it was only 980 yen and it was so cute that i decided i had to get it, even though i told myself i wouldn't buy anymore jackets! but ben and leilani talked me into it, and leilani got one too. i'm glad i got it though, it was such a great deal and it's so pretty! i love the color...but getting back to kobe, after shopping we found a little restaurant in mosaic to eat dinner at. i had shrimp tempura on rice and it was delicious! i actually haven't had a bad meal in japan so far, even though we mostly eat at inexpensive places.

after dinner me, leilani, and ben are kinda tired and decide that we just want to go back to hirakata that night and not stay over in kobe. we didn't want to abandon taheer cause he really wanted to stay the night, but he said it was ok cause he was planning to stay anyway. but we figured we had seen everything there is in kobe and we already saw stuff for the chinese new year,

ikuta road

another area in kobe, although we didn't go there

so there was really no reason to pay to stay the night...although we were all looking forward to staying in a love hotel. but we can do that another time lol...so we go back to the train station and go our seperate ways! the train ride back was a lot of fun. me and ben had some good conversations about the most random things! he's a really fun guy. like we were waiting in for the train and there's these colored blocks on the ground where you're supposed to stand so that you'll be at the door when the train gets there. well we noticed that no one was getting in the line behind us! the lines on both sides of us were really long, but no one was behind us. we were like "why doesn't anyone like us?" we figured they were scared of us or something lol. so we were cracking up about it, and then the train gets there. well there wasn't any door at the block where we were standing. so we realized that it's not that people don't like us, it's because we were at the wrong spot. they were probably thinking "look at those

ben

ben in kobe lol

dumb gaijin" (gaijin means foreigner, and it's our favorite word now lol). it was soooo funny! then we weren't sure if the train was going to makino, so ben poked his head in the train and asked some guy if it was the right one. it is so we got on the train. then we started talking and realized that the way ben had asked the guy was kinda impolite. but he did say "sumimasen," which is a polite way of saying excuse me. so what he said to the guy was something like "excuse me sir...yo where this train goin'?" we were laughing about that nearly the whole way back. i haven't laughed that hard since i got here. maybe we were so tired that the smallest thing was absolutely hysterical, but we had so much fun! then we talked about having a party in the train one night, i'll let you know when that happens...so yeah the ride back to makino was very entertaining to say the least!

when we got back to makino we started our long walk back to the seminar house. but it was fun too cause we were still laughing about what ben

shopping

the girls shopping!...and ben

had said to that guy. and he even carried my bag for me, cause he said he wanted to feel like a gentleman haha. especially after the way he spoke to the guy on the train. we all talked about various other random topics on the walk back! ben did some beat-boxing for us, and even a little bit of the kyu-kyu rap. it was a lot of fun! but the roads and the sidewalks were still covered in snow, which had now turned mostly to ice, so it was a slippery walk back! i almost fell once lol. once we reached their seminar house, we said our goodbyes and i got my bike and started my ride back to my seminar house. but everything was so icy i didn't want to ride my bike so i just walked it back. it took a little longer, but definitely a lot safer! i finally got back to the seminar house a little bit past 11 and went straight to bed cause i was so exhausted!

so overall saturday in kobe was a lot of fun! not my favorite place to shop, but the harbor was absolutely beautiful, and china town