The excitment for the Kobe Beef was big this morning. So much so that Duy was even up on time after getting in at 2:30am. It was rainy and overcast today, we have a typhoon which is meant to be hitting Japan tomorrow so the weather wasn’t great. Luckily this group lets nothing get in their way so we umbrella’d up and started our journey.
It was a 1 hour train ride to Kobe animal kingdom whichwas to be our First stop. for the day
Kobe animal Kingdom was pretty cool. They have a huge variety of animals and many oppurtunites to feed and interact with them. The first section is all domestic pet animals, so cats, dogs, bunnies, gunea pigs etc. We didnt spend much time in here but there were some cute cats.
The next section was a wetlands section. It had ducks, swans, flamingos deer and some lemurs. On the side where some smaller big cats. It was interesting to see so many different animals in here together.
We checked out the American part and saw some eagles and bears and beavers. Beavers are really cool I do not think I have ever seen one up close before. The next sections was Australia and NZ so we saw some sheep, alpaccas, kangaroos and a camel…. I got to feed the sheep which was pretty cool. We also fed some huge koi in the river part.
The enxt bit was my favourite part as it was all the animals we could feed. We found the gaint tortises in here and started with feeding them. Chris loves turtles so he was pretty excited. You paid 100yen and were given a cup with leaves and tongs to feed them. They are such cool animals.
In the same area as the turtles you could also feed Capabayra’s they are so big and bristly. They were really cool to feed too.
There was also a section to feed a toucan which was awesome too.
We finished up in Kobe animal Kingdom and took the sky train back into Kobe. We started to make our way to the Kobe Beef resturant. We were running early so we decided to stop into Ikuta Shrine. As this was the first shrine visit of the trip, I made my way into the office there to buy my Goshunincho notebook. A goshunin meands an honerable red stamp note book. At each shrine you visit they can stamp it and write the temples name and the date. We then had a look around the temple. It was so pretty and peaceful.
It was then on to lunch. We were having lunch at a steak house called Steak Aoyama. It is a Kobe beef resturant which serves A5 quality beef. Which is the best steak you can have. This resturant is owned by a family and they only serve 8 people max for lunch and 8 for dinner. This place was amazing.
Not only was the food absolutley amazing! I dont think I can eat another steak again after sampling it. The beef was so smooth it just melted. The guy who cooked for us was super funny and entertaining. I cannot reccomend this place enough. We were the only 5 people in the resturant so we had it to ourselves. If you come to Osaka make the trip here and try the Kobe Beef it is worth it.
After a super amazing lunch we decided to visit another temple in Kobe. The women at the resturant reccomended it. So off we trotted through Kobe and up the biggest hill in the world. The temple called Kitano Tenman Temple was set up in the mountains of Kobe and was so pretty. We got our second stamp from the temple and enjoyed the view over Kobe before walking our way back to the train station. Kobe is a really nice city. I wish we had more time to explore it.
The afternoon was spent doing some shopping at the Disney Store and Pokemon centre. Then returning to the hotel to organise ourselves for this Typhoon. We decided to book another night here as we dont want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere when the typhoon hits.
We then went to an arcade where this guy decided to tell the arcade lady where to put the prize so I could win. It was odd. We also won a few smaller prizes before walking home. We did over 30000 steps today. We are a little tired.