Kobe

I went to Kobe for weekend. As Kobe is one of Japan’s major international ports, it was influenced by foreign country around the city. I couldn’t enjoy my trip last time because it was end of the March and pretty cold. In my opinion, the best season for traveling Kobe is end of April to May which is neither cold nor hot.



We took off at Sannomiya station and went to north part of the city. And we saw a big village which is filled of exotic sights, buildings, stores and restaurants. I couldn’t believe we were in Japan. I felt like I’m in one of the Europe country. It was amazing. Even “starbucks” were different. I think it was originally House but they just remodeled into the café so we would think like in the 19bcentury café. We went to Kitanomachi square which is located on the top of the hill. So we saw the view over the village and luckily we watched the guy playing performance.

And we walked the street and enjoyed the beautiful classical architectures.

 After that we went back to the station to go to the big shopping street which is kind of big such as Shinsaibashi.

After window-shopping for a while, we went to Chinatown. It was such a big town I’ve never seen.  It was so crowded so we couldn’t look around well but there were so many restaurants and people were eating outside it was kind of interesting.

And then we went to “Bay Area” to see the night view. Along the sea, there were Kobe tower, meriken park, small amusement park and Hotel and big shopping center ( which is called ‘mosaic’,). There were a lot of thing to see. We looked around and relaxed at the coffee shop near the sea and wait for night. It was even more beautiful at night. We took a lot of photos and we couldn’t even say any word because it was so amazing.

On the way to the station, we found a big department and we saw really nice illumination which was so pretty. It was very nice trip I went recently because it was my first time to travel by myself without Japanese or someone who can speak Japanese. So it means a lot for me. And it was nice trip ever.

Sakura in Japan

I want to write about Hanami and skura in Japan. I think most of people in my class will write about it so I tried to find another topic. But I think it is one of the biggest festivals in Japan so I don't want to miss it. I've never seen such a big sakura festival before. We have it but it's not traditional things like Japan. I think Hanami is a big part of Japanese culture and we cannot think of Japan without sakura. Sakura is Japan’s national flower.

I went to “Hanami” with some of my Japanese friends last week. It was my first time to go to see sakura so I was so excited. It was a huge festival than I expected. There were so many people and many stores that sell foods and beers. Everyone brought food and shared with people. So we could taste many kinds of food. And then we played games and take pictures and took a nap. And I had seen many families and a group of people.

[kiyomizudera in kyoto]

I spend a lot of time in Kyoto in order to see sakura for last week. I cannot forget it forever. For this season some temples open at night. I went there to see the night view and it was incredible. I’ve heard that every Japanese come to famous temple for sakura in this season. I went there the last day of festival so it was so crowded. This festival came from in the past and it’s like an annual event in Japan. Many people sit down under the sakura and drink beer and have some food. And they made a lot of noise… I got surprised in this case. Because normally they don’t like to make a noise but they sing a song loudly in the public area and made noise something like that. I think only this season they can break their rule for temporally and get rid of stress.
I think Hanami is social equipment for Japanese who live such an inflexible society to take a breath for few days in a year.

 

[Nijo castle in kyoto]

I took a thusand of pictures in kyoto for last week in my mind. It is so priceless and never forget it.