Keeping You Posted ...: Back to Kobe ...

On a random Saturday Daniel and I decided to head to Kobe with some of my favorite girls ... Kazuyo, Kayo & Saya. I've been to Kobe before, but it was Daniel's first time. I kind of wanted to get one of those tour guide flags and a megaphone but I figured Daniel would probably beat me up if I did, so I decided against it.

We went to an amazing lunch at the Oriental Hotel & walked along the pier with the girls doing nothing in particular. Just hanging out & being cool, like always. We were slowly but surely making our way to a Chinese festival in Chinatown, but who was in a hurry? :)

Any thoughts on what exactly this is suppose to be?

Kayo & Saya tried (unsuccessfully) to scale it about ten times before they gave up.

Goofy kids:

We had so much fun doing nothing ... Just being silly kids:

And then we found this pirate ship ...
Who doesn't want to play in a pirate ship?

The pier kind of reminded me of Venice Beach ... There were lots of people doing everything and anything from dancing to trick biking to painting to skateboarding. I didn't see anyone eating out of trash cans though.

I have no idea what these things are, but I think it's probably a health hazard:

We walked to Kobe Tower and the girls wanted to go up to the tip top.

Of course I couldn't be a fun hater, so here we go again ...

This tower was nowhere near as terrifying as the others. The observation deck is at 90 meters, which is nothing compared to the Umeda Sky Building's 173 meters or Tokyo Tower's 250 meters.

The view of the port ... the white building is the Oriental Hotel, where we had lunch:

The only thing really unsettling about Kobe Tower is the fact that right underneath it is a small memorial park dedicated to the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995. The whole time we were up there I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if the ground started shaking uncontrollably due to seismic tremors. The more I thought about it the more I realized I wasn't as comfortable up there as I thought I was.

I was more than happy when Kayo & Saya said they were ready to go back down & quickly led the way to the elevator. I survived yet another one of these ridiculous towers.

Next up was the earthquake memorial park that had kicked my imagination into high gear atop Kobe Tower. This earthquake wasn't messing around killing 6,434 people and causing $102.5 billion in damages. That's serious stuff.

There is an area that still has rubble from the earthquake to serve as a reminder of what mother nature is capable of. It's memorials from disasters such as this that remind me that there are some things you can't predict and therefore can't escape. Tragedies with no one to blame. No one to be angry at. No politics, no perpetrator. You can put a religious spin on it or give a scientific definition but it doesn't take away from the sadness.
The earthquake did ignite a revaluation of volunteerism in Japan as many people rushed to help those in need. I read somewhere that even the yakuza was involved in delivering emergency supplies and food to devastated areas. Yay yakuza? :)

There is a garden and a pond and a poem about life after tragedy and moving forward and whatever else it said in Japanese ... (my translating skills are SO bad)

The girls had fun playing in the water & I held my breath every time they jumped from one rock to the other, but I let them have their fun ... and no one drowned.

Finally, finally we made it to Chinatown. We were going to watch a Chinese dragon festival ... or something? Isn't that terrible that I don't remember? That's what happens when I forget to blog about things that happened 6 months ago. Anyway ... there were adorable kids playing some sort of traditional Chinese song and doing a very Chinese dragon dance.

I even found a clip that someone had posted on youtube from the festival ... weird, but here it is: Kobe Chinatown Festival

And then something strange happened ... go figure. These crazy looking 'characters' (they were something alright) started popping up everywhere (seriously, look at that pig on the left & whatever that is behind us who I'm pretty sure was trying to spear me in the back) and talking about saving your souls and making wishes for your afterlife and all this crazy junk. We had to light these huge incense and bow and clap and pray and I'm pretty sure that my soul is now in tip top shape. Thanks Chinese weird people.