Day 9 – Kobe

16,633 steps taken

Beef day! We travelled into Kobe by train, and coming out of the station, you could immediately tell what this city is known for. You could smell the delicious scents of grilling beef down every street we went near!

But our first step wasn’t to follow our noses towards the food smells, instead to follow our noses to the Nunobiki Herb Garden. It was only a short walk from Shin Kobe station to a long ramp and elevator up to the base of the ropeway, where we went up the mountain to the very top for amazing views of Kobe. Up the top there were quaint little stalls selling german snacks, honey flavoured ice-cream and different herbed teas. My day was made finding an old cat staring out over the city, who adored the pats he was getting from every silly white girl who discovered him (me, it was only me).

We went off to explore the gardens, walking through the different herb gardens and glass houses with hundreds of different species of plants, vegetables and herbs. At the end of the path we stopped at a cafe, which around the side had a herb foot spa. I’m sure it was interesting to watch the 12 of us try to find space along this less that 3 meter long trough to dip our tired feet in. After our 10 minutes was up, we headed back down towards our Kobe beef booking, and only got distracted once by lavender ice-cream, which was pretty delicious!

Our Kobe booking was for 1.30, at a tiny little restaurant called Tor Road Steak Aoyama. Amy and her crew went to this place last time they were in Japan, and said it was life-changing, so we were keen to try it out! Aoyama only holds a maximum of 8 people per session, and you can only book through their facebook page, so we were treated to a pretty intimate and exclusive experience. We were all sat around a very polished hot plate where we were able to watch the chef cook us our magnificent meal. The artistry throughout the experience was mesmerising! The attention to detail in the way he moved his cooking tools and the food over the hotplate, and the skill to have the meat cooked at the same time but perfectly to peoples preferences. It’s needless to say, but I was really impressed, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I would recommend anyone in the area to think about prebooking this experience – it’s one not to miss!

After lunch we only had a short time before we had to head back to Osaka, so we continued our temple stamp hunt! Close by there was a buddhist temple called Ikuta, so we headed straight there! With another stamp in the book, it was time to get Sue back to Tokyo on a bullet train and head to Umeda to try and catch the sunset from the Umeda Sky Building. By the time we got there it was a little too late to get up there before night fell, so we decided to explore the area a little, and then head home for food. I was pretty darn exhausted at this point, so I headed back to the room for an early night, as some of the guys went out for sushi train and arcades.

As I’m writing this (one day behind) we’re on a bullet train on our way to Tokyo! We only have a few days left on this trip of a lifetime. Off to make crazy memories in this crazy!