We then left Himeji for Kobe, wanting to spend the majority of the day in Kobe. We dropped our bags off at the next hostel and aimed to walk down to the pier with help from the worst map I've ever used. It wasn't to scale, hardly any roads were shown and it didn't show many major sights. Anyhow, we found a nice stadium and, thinking it was baseball, walked up to it. It was football so we were a little disappointed. The Japanese seem to be very into baseball and the thought of catching a game was quite exciting.
We then caught a train to further up the pier, trying to find a lively and exciting area of Kobe. It was raining so nothing was too exciting. We ended up entertaining ourselves by playing our own version of 20 questions (Harry Potter characters).
However, not far from the pier was Kobe's Chinatown. This was much more happening and the food available looked incredible so we queued for some noodle dish. Mine was quite spicy (didn't realise it had two chillies next to it on the menu till after I'd ordered) but was still delicious. Noddles with bean sprouts, Chinese leaf and spring onions in a stock with some kind of harrisa and some minced beef added in. Maybe not Japanese but close enough.
Looking back at the shockingly bad map we chose to visit the Sake breweries, thinking they would be fascinating. They just looked like big factories. And went on for miles. We must have walked round them for about an hour before deciding to head back to the centre.
We visited a shrine just off a very busy shopping street which was quite nice but nothing compared to some of the amazing ones we've seen so far in Japan. The shopping area was good to walk through because the atmosphere was buzzing and there were lots of happy chatty people.
From there we headed to near our hostel again, ready to find food for tea. We got a little lost trying to locate the hostel so accidentally ended up walking into some kind of music festival. Immediately we located the cans of beer and stood listening to the strange Japanese music before choosing some food from the many stalls. I went for some meat (probs horse again) with onions and noodles in a sauce which I'm pretty sure was Korean. Nevertheless, it tasted good. Especially after a beer. We stayed at the festival for a couple of hours; Matt thought it was great as he could see everything as he's over six foot. Everyone there was my height so I wasn't so lucky. But the atmosphere was lovely and Japanese people are always so happy. The music festival definitely made my day.
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