Roving Japan

07-05-09 Note: Someone figured out the hack to softbanks carrier file for my phone, so I am now rocking a laptop with a tethered iphone in the tent. I can continue to play catch up with the next several posts, or I can post placeholders and start posting current stuff each day. Right now I am going to keep playing catch up, but if you have an opinion, let me know.

Day 46 Photoset

We purposely booked a hotel in Takamatsu next to the main ferry ports so that this morning would be relaxing. Just head outside and jump on the boat. Too bad for us, we didn’t realize that the ferry to Kobe departs from a port several kilometers to the East! After a bit of panicking, Risa spotted a bus stop that takes people to the port for free! Whew!

The ferry was comfortable, and we had some time to do photo selecting which was nice. The highlight was passing under the “Pearl Bridge”, the largest suspension bridge in the world. I think most of the people on the boat are regulars, so Risa and I were the only ones outside on the bow taking tons of pictures.

Kobe is a cool city. There is a lively china town, lots of foreign inspired food (yay!), shopping districts, and a cool marina area, with lots of restaurants, shops, a marine museum, and Kobe tower.

On our way to the marina, we walked through the Kobe china town. It was a fun, since Japanese people don’t buy cheap trinkets, they buy sweets. This made for a china town focused on food, drinks and sweets. There were still lame t-shirts and little trinkets if you’re looking for that, but not nearly as much as in America. We did walk into one little trinket store and it was as if we had been transported back to clement street in SF. They sold all the same crap, and no one was buying anything. Just like SF!

From china town we walked to the the marina area and explored for a while. There was a ton of food, but we needed a more affordable dinner option (read: cheap). We settled on an “Italian” family restaurant which was basically identical to Joyfull, but with a few more Italian inspired dishes like spaghetti and pizza. The main reason we ate there, however, was the $3.49 “4-glass” decanter of wine. 4 glasses of wine for $3.50? Sold!

They served the red wine chilled, with frosty glasses… but it was $3.50!

Walking home was fun, I took a bunch of pictures of the signs. China town was also pretty cool at night when no one was around.