Kobe (神戸市)

Today, a cold chilly slap of reality. Even in Japan, not every train comes at a 5 minute frequency. We had to wait almost 45(!) minutes for our train to Kobe, though we might have come to the realisation afterwards that Kobe is serviced by a lot more trains than the Shinkansen. On well ...

Arriving at the Shinkansen station of a city of 1.5 million, it's only about 300 metres from the station to a rather nice waterfall. And 400 metres higher, a nice lookout over the port city. Not a bad entry point.

While the city didn't offer us anything special and particular, it did offer a nice ocean view, a shopping mall which was long enough to let the same coffee chain have multiple stores, and a Ferris wheel which was also able to animate fun patterns (and English scrolling messages) along the LED chains of its struts. Being a port city and therefore influenced by international relations, the city also has a rather western looking quarter.