일본 (ill-bon): 삼

Last but furthest from the least, we spent our final full day in Kobe. Kobe is no more than a one hour train ride around Osaka Bay from Osaka. The town is built on a sliver of land between the waterfront and a line of mountains, therefore the city appears endless in one direction, and pinched into the bay in the other.

We came to Kobe with one real expectation, to eat the famous beef. We were successful, and then some. During our quick tour, we perched ourselves upon vantage points of the city and spent the rest of the time eating.

Shred time.

Safety net.

Our first vantage point was from the top of the Shin-Kobe Rope Way (gondola). The view provides a vista of Osaka Bay, the chain of islands including the Kobe airport, and all the ports lining the water. It really seems like Osaka, Kobe, and everything in between are all the same city.

Pretty lady.

After hiking down through the gardens, we took to our search for the one Kobe beef restaurant in our Lonely Planet book. In retrospect, we should have seen red flags when--in the city famous for Kobe beef--the travel book had only one suggestion. I think there is a good possibility writer for the Kobe section never actually went to Kobe. At any rate, we found the listed restaurant in a mall and decided to look further. Suggestion number 1: anyone going to Kobe should make the first stop at the JR Sannomiya station information booth, it has all there is to know about where to find anything in Kobe.

Luckily we stumbled upon a pastry shop in our search for a slice of beer fed meat. The pastries in Kobe are out of this world, that's all I can say; out of this world. By the time we got to the information booth, it was almost past the lunch hour at the beef restaurants. Luckily we found a little gem near the train station using our new information pamphlet; just in time. Suggestion number 2: have the beef for lunch, the lunch menu is less than half the price of the dinner menu.

Clean slate.

희.

Marble.

Medium-well, too much grill time.

Lunch is served.

Here's how it works at a Kobe beef spot. Once you are seated, you have a variety of choices, even the possibility of a hamburger... But what you really want is one of the lunch specials which include soup, salad, veggies, bread/rice, drink, etc. These specials are priced based on the quantity of beef included.

After ordering, prepare to be dazzled. While you're enjoying your soup and salad, the cook will come to your area and begin meticulously cleaning the meticulously cleaned griddle. Once he's satisfied, he'll begin by cooking your garlic slices into chips; then come the vegetables. Once the vegetables are cooked, the meat comes out of the back room to make it's cameo on the griddle before finding itself seared and sliced in front of you. It's funny, for most of the cooking experience, you never see any meat. I found myself wondering; if this place is famous for it's steak, should it be dripping off the walls? They must have it under lock and key with a pit boss in the fridge divvying out all the prize.

Another retrospective thought on the Kobe beef saga: if I were to have another steak of such high acclaim, I would order it rare.

#1 and #2.

Kobe.

A bridge on a hill.

After our lunch, we took in a couple beers on the waterfront before hiking off the steak lunch up to the second view point. I can't remember for the life of me what the name of the viewpoint was, it's on the Kobe city map, about a mile directly behind Kobe Tower. We walked the road up to the pedestrian bridge with a view. It felt a lot like Germantown Road in Portland. At the top of the hill, there's a pedestrian bridge where you can stand and see the end of Kobe in one direction, and the endless city in the other. Our ascent culminated right as the sun's rays were wrapping up their day over Kobe. Truly beautiful.

On our way back to Osaka that night, we decided Kobe really feels a lot like home. The city is not astronomically populated, and the people are very unique in the Portland sort of way. Not to mention the food is about as artisan as I've seen in Asia. But I think what really makes this city and Portland so similar; the Subarus.

--That concludes our adventure in Japan--