Day 2: Kobe – Meriken Park & Harborland

The afternoon segment of Day 2! We were already pretty deadbeat by the time we ended our morning jaunt up Mt. Maya. Ling was interested in trying out the local versions of Yoshinoya, so we ducked in one such outlet back at Sannomiya Station for a quick beef bowl-styled lunch.

Like many other eateries we’ve seen or patronized so far, many Japanese just duck in for a quick meal before leaving. There’re fine-dine restaurants of course, several of which we passed by later in the evening at Daimaru department store, but those places looked real expensive.

Tummies filled, it was a short train hop from Sannomiya to Motomachi Station in the direction of our hotel. We’re gradually getting the hang of Kobe city transportation too, though there’s a funny incident about how we both ask for directions that I’ll relate here later.:)

Chinatown was on our way towards the Harborland and Meriken Park area; but that’ll be for the evening program.

At about this point, and passing by again the ubiquitous vending machines, Ling started doing a girly-whine about her brain having a migraine and feeling very slow; and that she needed coffee to perk her up. So here she went:

She was supposed to turn into a happy camper finally being able to try out Japanese Coffee Cans DIspensed from Vending Machine – only that the one she chose tasted like, in her own words, “3-1 coffee”.

Meriken Park is a short 10 minute walk from the Chinatown. It’s pretty hard to miss even for new travelers, as you only need walk in the general direction of this very distinctive-looking Kobe Port Tower:

When we got to the park itself, there were a group of Hyogo Prefecture motorbike police all clustered together. They started doing some synchronized bike formation stunts much to the thrill of the onlookers:

Some of those synchronized riding stunts look pretty dangerous; the way they were criss-crossing each other. We were undecided whether this group were just practising for an event, or this was part of the day’s tourist highlights in the area. In any case, they went about it for 20 minutes, at which point I wondered don’t these guys have traffic offenders to catch LOL.

Truth to tell; there wasn’t much for us to see at Meriken Park. It houses some nautical museums and exhibits, a really swanky Oriental Hotel, and an Ok view of the Kobe bay area. It’s otherwise all pretty drab and grey.

The Harborland area was, visually at least, a lot more colorful and teeming with families and activity. It’s like a Vivocity concept with Ferris-wheel, kid and family friendly booths, shops and restaurants and the like. There was also a Santa Claus and retinue at the grounds which posed for many photo opportunities:

Towards the mid-afternoon, we’d explored the area adequately, and headed back to the hotel for a short break before the evening program. Nicely; the harbor area is very close to our hotel, so it was a cool breezy 15 minute walk back to Kobe Station and our hotel.

Evening program; Chinatown. Ling wanted to check it out, and reported that since Kobe is apparently just one of three Japanese cities with a Chinatown of any good. More in the next post.:)