Kobe - Kyoto
Every now and then, we crave a bit of nature. After five days in the cities, we decided to visit the small harbor city, Kobe. Small, allé that’s what we thought. In reality, it’s quite a large, modern city nestled between the sea and Mount Rokko. Naturally, we went hiking in the mountains. First, we took the cable car up to the herb gardens high in the mountain. We saw the gardens from above but didn’t visit them (we’ll explain why later).
Before visiting the gardens, we wanted to hike to the top of Mount Maya. No tech trails without a good trail every now and then! As clear and organised as the public transport is in Japan, the hiking trails are the complete opposite—unclear and basic. After some searching and asking around, we managed to get a map of the trail. It led us through the woods, up and down, with lots of big, strong (spider)webs along the way. It was supposed to take 1,5 hours to reach Mount Maya-perfect! You probably could hear us coming. There were just a few signs in Japanese along the way and after walking for 2 hours we decided to turn back and take the trail down to the station. Unfortunately, we didn’t reach the top of Mount Maya. Later, we discovered we had been walking the much longer and harder route to Mount Maya. We would have made it eventually! The walk down was also very nice. We learned about local water products and saw a few waterfalls.
Japan has been through a lot of natural disasters, including earthquakes. Kobe itself went through a devastating earthquake in 1995. In memory of this event they opened a museum where we relived the tragic events. We learned about the rebuilding of the city and even practiced what to do in case of a disaster (earthquake and tsunami). So, for all of you who asked us to stay safe, we are prepared to survive a natural disaster-or at least we know the basics!
Off to Kyoto, the former capital and one of the most visited areas in Japan. From the moment we arrived in the city it was clear that it would be way more hectic than the other cities. Especially at the famous attractions were packed, people everywhere.
Since we had a few days, we took our time to explore different parts of the town. As expected, there were lots of shrines and castles. The decorations and massive statues are still impressive, but to be honest, we (mostly Delphine) are starting to get a little tired of seeing so many shrines.
This time we saw more different gardens where we started to see signs of autumn. This seems crazy to us because it is still around 26 degrees and it still needs to cool down a lot for the winter temperatures.
So far we have slept on traditional futons (Japanese beds), ate a lot of different traditional Japanese food but still didn’t feel fully immersed in the culture. To complete our transformation we trained to be ninja/samurai! Ninjas and samurais are popular in movies and TV shows, but it was nice to learn about the real way of life back then. Did you know that the samurai were gender-neutral?! Whether you were a man or a woman, you were expected to fight in battle. Same counts for the children from the age of 14-15. In order to make sure the enemy could not spot the weaker ones in battle, they all wore a mask with sometimes a mustache on it. Unfortunately the only way to become a real samurai is to be born in a samurai family or get adopted by one.
On our last day in Kyoto, we visited two of the city’s most famous attractions: the Golden Temple (Kinkaku-ji) and the Red Gates (Fushimi Inari Shrine). In our opinion, the Golden Temple is a bit overrated. While it’s special to see a real golden temple, it was very crowded and after a few minutes the walk through the garden is over. The red gates on the other hand are a true recommendation. Just as we had read online, the further you walk, the fewer people you encounter, and the more you get to see. In addition to the endless gates there were small shrines, an amazing viewpoint and a large forest. We walked 1.113 steps (yes, Arnaud counted them) to the top. After that, we took a side trail into the forest. The trail was easy, with different scenery; trees and even a small bamboo forest. The best part was how few people we encountered along the way.
(If you’re wondering why we are stil together? It is because we are very alike sometimes :D)
Manhole covers
An update on the manhole covers: Kobe treated us with some very cute ones, but Kyoto clearly missed the memo. We searched all over the city but only found one. Very disappointing! Hopefully, we’ll come across more in the other cities.
Food
If you enjoy Japanese cuisine in Belgium, you’ll absolutely love it in Japan. Every city, no matter the size, is filled with small restaurants offering a variety of dishes. As the Japanese like to make efficient use of the space they have available, they try to fit the most clients in their restaurant and you will see a lot of restaurants were there is only a bar with a couple of seats available. Pretty cool to be close to the kitchen and interact with the person that is serving your food and drinks. The hardest part is choosing where to eat—it’s like standing in front of a grocery store aisle with too many tempting options for a single product. Speaking of grocery stores, many of them offer prepared meals that you can heat and eat right there in the store at no extra cost. The surprising part is that not only do they look good, but they’re also absolutely delicious! Sushi, noodles, rice with chicken or pork, soba… we can’t get enough! We’ll definitely need more time to try everything. Stay tuned for one of our next posts, where we’ll share our experience with a fully traditional Japanese meal and breakfast.