Japan Revisited - Kobe

Day 5

What do you associate Kobe with? Yes most of us would mention beef and Kobe Beef is famous the world over which is one of the must do for us is a Kobe Beef meal.😜

No today we are not rushing over to Kobe instead our first stop is Akashi, a small town after Kobe to explore the Unotana Fish Market. This place is famous for octopus.

Yummy Octopus

Sun Dried Octopus

After our jaunt in the fish market we headed to Kobe to have the so much talked about beef for lunch. We have decided to have it in a restaurant recommended by locals but was disappointed because it was close. Then our second choice is SteakLand which is very much publicized in the internet.

Queuing outside Steakland.

When we arrived at the restaurant there was already a long queue and we joined in the queue to get a seat. After awhile some people came to the back of the queue and ask us to follow them to another location. I was suspicious so I asked why? They just replied "follow, follow, same" with their very limited English. So without much of a choice we followed them to the back lane into another building up an elevator, When the elevator door open it was a large dining hall and several group of people were dining. They looked like they were from group tours having a taste of Kobe beef en masse with catered menus. We were not pleased with the way we were treated we left to find another place to have our Kobe beef. There are many Kobe beef restaurant in Kobe so do not be mislead that SteakLand is the only place.

This is where we had our Kobe Beef, Kobe beef Grilled beef Kobe Tanryu Higashimon ten, it is a member of the Kobe Beef Tourist Association that guarantee that their beef is authentic.

Outside the restaurant, no queue 😉

There was another plate of Kobe beef which we forgot to take a photo because of our eagerness to enjoy such tender and very yummy beef 😜

Having lost so much time in getting lunch we headed straight to  Nada Sake District instead of visiting Chinatown -Nankinmachi so we have forgo a place of interest in our itinerary. In Nada sake district we visited the Hakutsuru Sake Museum.

The Hakutsuru Sake Museum

Barrels of Sake

The Fermenting Wooden Vat

Different rice grades for sake making.

Adding yeast to the rice in a special room.

Starting Vats.

Bulk packaging.

Different type of packaging.

Me moonlighting!

It was a very interesting and educational visit to the sake museum and we get to sample all the different types of sake too! Yum ... it was really good.

Next destination is Hiroshima.

Japan Revisited - Nara

Day 4

Today we made our way to Nara by limited express which is about an hour away. When we visited Osaka the last time we did not have Nara in our itinerary because of time constraint.

Nara is a quaint small town and the first thing we saw resembling a deer is this ↓

A Souvenir Shop

Kofukuji Temple 

Making a wish.

Kofukuji Temple Five Story Pagoda & Eastern Golden Hall on the left.

There were deer everywhere.

And soon it was the best time of the day ... Lunch!

Cold Soba with duck broth  and Tempura - Yum!

The cold soba is really good and I do recommend you to try it if you had not.

Entrance gate into Todaiji Temple, the deer are among the people

More deer

Todaiji Temple, no deer on this side.

More deer.

Kasugataisha Shrine

The many many lanterns

Typical Shop front

The staircase at Nara Station.

After a fun filled exciting and educational day in Nara it was back to Osaka for the night before going to Kobe the next day.

Japan Revisited - Osaka

We had such a good time during our last visit to Japan that we decided to make another visit this year. This trip we decided to visit the west side a continuation of where we left off during our last visit which is Osaka.

Day 1

This time we decided to fly Vietnam Airlines from our home country into Osaka and return from Fukuoka.

Flying Vietnam Airlines we have to transit in Hanoi which gives us the opportunity of having a bowl of 'pho' before continuing our journey to Osaka.

Day 2

It was an overnight flight and we landed in Osaka early in the morning greeted by a Super Hero called "Rapi:tldier" 

Then it is to Osaka city from Kansai International Airport with our luggage in tow for some sight seeing in Umeda area.

We were surprised to see a large number of people on a Saturday morning waiting to get into a departmental store before opening to do their shopping.

After walking around for awhile we decided to go look for the place to have the lunch that we wanted, 'Kishimen' which is a very popular in Nagoya and to my knowledge there is only one shop in Osaka.

Without wifi/data it took us awhile to locate the shop and this is what we had 

Beef Soup Kishimen

Beef Curry Kishimen

Sorry I forgot to take pictures before eating, I think it must have been the hunger and excitement. They are both delicious and I asked the owner of the shop whether he is from Nagoya and he said yes. 

In the afternoon we went to meet up with a friend of us and check in to our Airbnb after that. We later made our way to Doutonbori Street to get some snacks and see the Glico man.

A Crab Restaurant

Spidey wants Kobe Beef!!!

Takoyaki a favourite in Osaka

Synthetic Display Food

A Ramen Shop Display

Glico Man

A Puffer Fish Restaurant

The Doutonbori Canal

Day 3

We had made arrangement to join a free walking tour in the afternoon around Namba area and in the morning we went to the Tsuruhashi area to visit the market and its surrounding. It is an interesting area for a look see.

Yummy Taiyaki

Pork Trotters

Sliced and ready to eat - yum!!!

Korean Pancake

After some walk around we headed to Namba to look for lunch and join up with the Osaka Free Walking Tour. Upon arrival in Namba we had lunch in a Gyoza specialist restaurant and it was yum!

Tonkatsu Ramen

Traditional Gyoza

Boiled Gyoza

After lunch we met up with the free walking tour and it was very educational tour. 

Glico Man revisited

Hello Kitty Car Park

For the first time I realised that Hello Kitty does not have a mouth and she is British. She does not have a mouth because she speaks from her heart.

Billiken

Billiken is an immigrant from USA.

Tsutenkaku Tower

 The Tsuenkaku Tower in Shinseikai which was designed to look like the Parisian Eiffel Tower on top and the Arc de Triomphe at its base.

The original Kushikatsu Daruma Restaurant

 The famous Kushikatsu Daruma Restaurant which was here since 1929.

The Iconic Icon ... err the one on the right!!!

The Walking Tour Group from all over the world!

After all the walking we were a like peckish and back tracked to Kushikatsu Daruma Restaurant for a snack. We had to wait a little while before we were seated, this restaurant is always full house.

Some kind of beef stew ... yummie!

The Kushikatsu - veggie & meat

After having our snack we made our way to Amemura or America Village to do some people watching.

Small Scale reproduction of the Statue of Liberty

At the Triangle Park

 A well known spot in Amemura is the Mitsui Park or more commonly as Sankaku/Triangle Park.

An American Sports car - Corvette

Totally Italian

American Choppers

Lowriders

Saw a Lowrider bouncing around almost like in Broadway New York!

Next destination is Nara.