Japan [Day 9 - Kobe & Osaka]

Kobe, port city

KOBE

A another day, another journey. Today we're going to Kobe in the morning. We took the train from Osaka to Kobe-Sannomiya station which took 30 minutes. Kobe is located not very far from Osaka. When we arrived, we took a walk outside heading to Kobe Port Tower. We saw a few Anpanman statues around this town. There's a museum for Anpanman here in Kobe but we didn't plan to go there. I guessed Anpanman wasn't very popular in Malaysia as we knew a little about it.

Anpanman

Kobe Harborland

Kenapa abam2 paus berenang atas darat?

More Anpanman

Kobe Port Tower

The weather was gloomy today thus our photos mostly had grey background. Sometimes the rain did fall down, but only in slight drizzles. We enjoyed our walked towards the tower, passing through a dock where a couple of cruises were waiting to depart. The tower is a symbol of Kobe. The entrance fee to observation deck is 600 yen (adult). However, we didn't go up to the deck because Emie didn't want to due to tight budget. He said it's okay if we wanted to go up, he would just wait downstairs. Hmmm, in the end we didn't go up to the deck, we just wandered around at the lobby and visited the souvenir shop. I bought a few magnets here. What's the point of traveling together if you didn't to do things together right?

Kobe Port Tower

with the tower

Meriken Park

Next, we walked to Meriken Park nearby. Meriken Park is a water front where Kobe Tower and Kobe Maritim Museum. Museum? Sorry no. Haha.. We did nothing much here except taking some photos. We saw a bunch of teenagers and asked one of the to take our photo. Actually we helped them to take group photo first.

Kobe Port Tower & Kobe Maritime Museum

Ok la dia ambil gambar, walaupun tak center..

Ikuta Shrine

After that, we took a bus from the Meriken Park back to Kobe-Sannomiya station. Motif pemalas kan? Padahal masa datang tadi jalan kaki je. From the station, we walked towards a shrine nearby, Ikuta Shrine. It's just a small shrine. The structure is quite nice with red colour much like Fushimi Inari in Kyoto.

  

Kobe Mosque | Masjid Kobe

Then we continued our walking tour to Kobe Mosque. The walk was uphill, it it started to rain again lightly. Along the way, we saw a few halal restaurants and halal grocery shop. I was sure that we're heading to the correct direction. After a few turns, we saw the mosque. It's was very pretty. The mosque opened in 1935 and had survived in a lot of incidents such as air raids and earthquake. We performed our prayer here, then bought a few instant noodles from the shop nearby before finding a restaurant to have lunch.

Halal shop

Masjid Kobe

We had tandoori chicken lunch at Madras Kitchen Restaurant which is located just a few minute walk from the mosque. I think the price for the tandoori and rice was around 1200 yen if I'm not mistaken. The food was nice. Then we saw the person who sat next to us ordered a briyani and our iman were goyah. Tetiba nampak lagi sedap. Hahaha..

Lunch

OSAKA

Dotonbori Glico Sign

Back in Osaka, we continued our tour. We captured our moments with the famous landmark in Osaka which is the giant Glico sign in Dotonbori. We spent quite a long time here to adjust the photos since the background kept on changing colours. Dotonbori is famous for its food street as there are a wide range of local food could be found here. Most of the shops/restaurants have giant decorations such as giant crab, giant sushi, giant hands and many others.

Giant crab

a happy Lukman

Shinsaibashi

Again, we went to Shinsaibashi shopping street again as the previous night  was a failure. Lukman bought us a Belgian waffle each but the waffle wasn't as good as the one in Kyoto. We really missed Kyoto though. Osaka is too hectic I guessed. We entered a few shops such as Daiso, 100 yen shops and also a toys arcade. Many gashapon machines were located here and also the crane-thingy. We tried a few rounds of the crane machine in order to get a Stitch plush, but in vain. We're so unlucky. Or tak reti? We didn't spent much money here. Just 500 yen for 6 attempts.

Belgian waffle with chocolate

Star Wars Figures

BB-8

1 coin 100 yen

After killing some of our time here, we took the train back to our hotel. It's time for a good rest.

Tomorrow's going to be our last full day in Japan. Why so soon? 

We're leaving in two days time.

*cry*