Breakfast this morning was from Doutor, a popular coffee chain found across Japan at 900 locations. They offer a selection of breakfast sets with a sandwich and coffee for just 390 yen (about £2.90).
In every Doutor you can find a smoking room.
Our plan this morning was to buy ferry tickets as we were off to the island of Shodoshima tomorrow. Flower road goes from Sannomiya station and led us directly to the ferry port.
We could have easily bought our ferry tickets on the day but were concerned they might sell out. We finally arrived at the port and everything was going according to plan.
Once at the ticket office though the plan fell through. The ferry was not running on weekdays for the next two weeks due to essential maintenance. This was quite a blow and initially we wondered how we'd ever reach Shodoshima.
There was a back up plan though which would involve travelling by train to Himejji and catching a ferry from there. Hearing this was a huge relief as Shodoshima was somewhere we were so excited about visiting. Safe in the knowledge we'd get there we made our way on the train slightly East of the city to visit Kobe Earthquake Memorial Museum.
Kobe Earthquake Memorial Museum opened in 2002 to commemorate the tragic 1995 Great Hanshin Awaji earthquake that hit Kobe. The earthquake resulted in the death of 5000 people and destroyed tens of thousands of homes. The museum includes a large screen theatre with realistic images of the
earthquake's destructiveness, a documentary film about the recovery
process, lots of information about the earthquake and various
interactive games about disaster prevention. Before leaving, one of the volunteers working here kindly spent time in educating us in what to do in the event of an earthquake or tsunami. If you visit Kobe I recommend visiting the museum, although a very sad and tragic event, the stories around how the people and city recovered are fascinating to learn about.
Outside the museum I called into a Lawson store for a pork katsu sandwich. This one was cut into small pieces and contained a really tasty tonkatsu sauce.
Also nearby was Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art. We didn't go inside but we did visit this giant apple on the rooftop terrace named "Youth" by Tadao Ando. A quote next to it read "Youth is not a time of life, it's a state of mind"
Outside the art museum we also found "Sun Sister" by Yanobe Kenji.
Back in central Kobe I bought this freshly baked bread roll topped with a sausage and mustard, so delicious!
We cut through Chinatown towards the port area stopping for a snack on the way.The only vegetarian thing Ella could find were these sweet potato chunks coated in a sweet sticky syrup. They were served warm and tasted really good.
These duck pancake wraps from Chinatown cost just 350 yen (about £2.60) each. The pancake was wrapped around shredded duck, a generous piece of duck skin, cucumber and spring onions. Hoi sin sauce was then brushed over the top making for a very tasty snack indeed!
Japan Special Pepsi, it didn't taste much different to me so I looked it up online and found the following information about it. "All the flavor of Pepsi you enjoy but with apparent health benefits. It
can stabilise ones glucose level, lower serum lipids, and increase the
absorbance of nutrients."
From Chinatown we cut through some malls passing some really cute dogs in prams.
Eventually we arrived at the port where we made a beeline for Anpanman Children's Museum and Mall. We didn't visit the museum but did venture down into the basement to check out the mall.
The noise levels from very excited children in the Anpanman Mall were very high. There were restaurants, playrooms, gift shops and even a specially themed barbers shop.
In hindsight I'm still kicking myself for not buying an Anpanman steamed bun!
Outside was a ferris wheel, BBQ area and Anpanman train ride. We walked slightly further and explored Kobe's brick warehouses but didn't spend too long there as they contained mainly restaurants.
We returned back to the hotel enjoying some Hanami dango on the way. Just 100 yen (about 74p) for a pack of 3. For those that aren't familiar with these, they're basically rice flour dumplings that despite the different colours all taste the same.
There's always space for more food back at the hotel and tonight was no exception. Fried chicken with egg, pork and vegetable topped rice from the legendary 7-Eleven.
Click here for Day 11
From Kobe to Shodoshima
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