Happy Thursday! Thanks for stopping by today. Today happens to be National Foundation Day, where for some of us in Japan, this means sitting at home on a national holiday listening to loudspeaker trucks pass by their homes shouting xenophobic/racist remarks in the name of Japan. For others like me, it's just a slow day where I get time to start another blog series (and potentially never seeing the end of it).
I call this series: "What Can I See/Do in Kobe City".
When people think of Kansai travel, it's really easy for people to pick...
Kyoto City - Otherwise your friends would judge you real hard for not going.
Osaka City - The heart of Kansai! Because everyone wants a photo of Glico dude. Or do anime things. Or go see NMB48? (are they even still popular nowadays?) Some of us just want Japanese pancakes and Japanese octopus balls.
Nara City - everyone wants a chance to be mobbed by deer.
And Kobe City - KOBE BEEF.
(and you hear Shiga & Mie prefecture crying at a distance because no one even knows about them, and poor Wakayama too)
Literally anyone who has heard of Kobe can only think of Kobe beef. That yummy, yummy expensive melt-in-your-mouth beef that they know they need to try! And then immediately come to a blank when they try to think about what else they can do or see in Kobe after travelling all this way to eat expensive steak.
No worries, ladies and gentlemen - I've got your back!
Today, I'm going to show you via photo blog this area in Kobe City called Shin-Nagata.
(absolutely not sponsored by a certain volunteer-basis PR Ambassador program because I failed their interview but I still love Kobe a lot, so now I'm my own Kobe PR program)
Access & How to Get Here
From Osaka, you can get here using the JR line. Take either the Special Rapid or the Rapid train to Hyogo Station, and switch to the Local train one more station to Shin-Nagata Station.
Get out of the station via the West Exit (or exit 1 on the map), walk around the mall and we'll start our photo blog adventures in Wakamatsu Park -
Kobe Tetsujin Project
When you reach the park, you'll see this big robot's (Tetsujin 28-go) backside -
Or the front side depending on how you walked over to this park.
I have to admit I don't know too much about what this is, but whether you're a fan or not - I think you should come by and check this area out. I've always wanted to come see this, but I never really looked into this until recently. According to the website of the Kobe Tetsujin Project, this is one of the works of an artist (mangaka) Yokoyama Mitsuteru. Kobe is his hometown, and a NPO organization wanted to make his work a more permanent and celebrate his achievements.
Which means this robot is not the only thing of interest here.
From Shin-Nagata station, there is a shopping street (the pink line running left to right) that spans all the way down to Komagabayashi station on the Kaigan Line, a station on one of the Kobe Subway Lines. As you can see on the map above, there are a few other attracts out of the shopping street too, but I only had one hour to kill - so I'll mostly be showing you the shopping street.
Before we go though, one last look for our Tetsujin 28-go first!
You should see the start of the shopping to your left if you are looking straight at the KT Station booth like I was. Walk straight to the end and it'll take you right to Komagabayashi Station.
You can take that subway line back to Sannomiya, via Motomachi - so it may cost you a bit extra - but it'll get you there. :)
Anyway, let's get going!
I really like the modern look of this shopping street a lot. There are a lot of local shops that sell a variety of goods. At the time I was there, due to COVID19 - a lot of the shops were closed - but definitely do take the time to look around.
Especially on the ground too.
I didn't notice it until almost at the very end, but there's a Nagata version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Haha. I wonder if there's anyone famous that I would have known if I had noticed it earlier...
At the road crossings, each corner of the street has more art sculptures which I presume is related to the mangaka's works? I didn't take photos of them, but they were all really interesting to see.
Don't forget to keep your eyes peeled for these nooks that would have been shops.
You might find more of this mangaka's works made into monuments.
Or a shrine, in this case:
There's also a Kobe Tetsujin Three Kingdoms Gallery... and a shop that sell goods from the manga. They're closer towards Komagabayashi Station. I didn't go inside since I wasn't a fan or anything, but it looks interesting.
It takes about 10-15 minutes to walk through the whole street without stopping. It's really not that long of a street, so it's a nice little 1 or 2-hour stroll away from the city center.
When you get to Komagabayashi Station, you're met with this poster of Three Kingdoms by the station gate. While I don't know the manga much, I do know 諸葛亮 Chu Got Leung (or Zhuge Liang if you don't speak Cantonese) is a well-known historical figure featured in a lot of Period Dramas in Chinese television. After all, Three Kingdoms is about China after all...
That's it for today's photo blog. Thanks a lot for reading this one!!
If you've been here before, what did you think of this place? What are some things that I missed when I was here?? Let me know by commenting or tell me on my social accounts!