圖文英文版：
http://liztseng-blog.logdown.com/posts/4465-day-4-kobe-almost-a-sunny-day
行程：生田神社 --> 異人館 --> 神戶牛排 --> 六甲山高山植物園
Our morning starts with a walk to the 生田神社 (Ikita shrine),
which is the shrine from which the city Kobe got its name from.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47842021/2013%20Japan/IMG_8543.jpg
稚日女尊 (Wakahirumenomikoto) is the Goddess this shrine is dedicated to.
So...it's not even very clear who Wakahiru is supposed to be.
She is either Amaterasu (and Wakahiru is her youth name) herself, or is
Amaterasu's sister. Two stories from Japan's ancient mythology relate
to her death, both of which are slight variations of how some other
naughty god threw a skinned horse through the roof of the house she was
weaving in, and, being startled, she either injured herself with the
shuttle (but did not die), or the shuttle pierced her vagina causing
her to bleed to death (that is some unusual way to die).
The third myth that mentions her name relates to actual historical
figures. In year 201, Queen Jingo, upon returning from sea, was unable
to dock into the harbor and prayed to the gods for safe passage, upon
which Wahahiru appeared and said "I want to live in the land of
Ikuta Nagasa", so Queen Jingo asked 海上五十狭茅 (Unagaminoichisa) to
host an offering feast. Unagaminoichisa then became the founding priest
of what is known as the Ikita shrine today. The name "Kobe" slowly
evolved from "The house of the Deity --- 神戸 (Kanbe)" in 9 AD, to
"Konbe", then slowly to "Kobe".
So Ikuta shrine is not just any shrine, but one that is deeply
connected with the origin of Kobe. It is not only visited by curious
tourists, but also by sincere pilgrims (or should I call them prayers?)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47842021/2013%20Japan/IMG_8561.jpg
I'm not sure how shrines decide whether they have priests or
priestesses, but the priestesses at Ikuta Shrine were all quite youthful!
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47842021/2013%20Japan/IMG_8587.jpg
In addition to the main shrine, there're also many other shrines
dedicated to other smaller deities. The one that always intrigues
me are the Inari foxes (稲荷の狐）.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47842021/2013%20Japan/IMG_8585.jpg
I just like foxes. They're so cute, haha.
I told my mom I remember Inari foxes like fried tofu, or, more precisely,
people offer fried tofu to Inari foxes (they are the messengers of Inari).
I had to look it up online later to make sure I was right, and possible
explanations include:
- People offered fried tofu to Inari, and it was them mistakenly thought
that Inari's fox messengers would like them too.
- People used to use fried rats to capture foxes. But Inari being an
agricultural god, offering its messengers fried rats seem inappropriate,
so fried tofu instead is used.
- Because the color of fried tofu is similar to the coat of foxes.
Since foxes are omnivores, it's unlikely they will like fried tofu.
And man this is making me want some inari sushi...
After Ikuta, we headed north towards the Kitano ward. Another big
tourist spot in Kobe are all the former consular and foreign dwellings
in Kitano. We started with the two famous houses: the Weathercock
house (home of a German merchant) and Meogi house (home of American
consul general). They were both decently looking but nothing surprising.
After all, the importance of these buildings is the preservation of
early 20th century Western architecture in Kobe.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47842021/2013%20Japan/IMG_8611.jpg
The two houses charged a total of 600 Yen per person, which was
reasonable. But then I made a huge blunder. I was lured into the Holland
house and bought a triple entrance fee for the Holland house (which
was close to a scam, since it was also trying to sell perfume), the
Danish house (which wasn't even an historical building! They just put
some viking puppets and a fake viking ship in there), and the
Austrian house (also another non-historical building that just had
pictures of Mozart in it). We left the last three houses with a bad
taste in our mouthes, which did not get better when we reached the
ticket booth for the remainder of the "real" consulate houses (for
England, Germany, etc). The girl at the counter tried very hard to
convince me to buy the full package: 9 houses for a total of 3100
Yen. At this point we decided there's nothing in these houses that
could possibly make us regret not going there.
We stormed down Kitano in search of lunch, and came across this
beautiful restaurant that offered Kobe steak lunch.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47842021/2013%20Japan/IMG_8676.jpg
From the onset, things looked promising. The chef took our request
and did not add any salt to the meat. And the meat already looked
tasty in its raw form, with beautiful marbles of fat, hmmmm....
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47842021/2013%20Japan/20130707_114505.jpg
Our chef was very cheerful and also liked to pose for pictures:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47842021/2013%20Japan/20130707_115310.jpg
So how did the food fare?
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47842021/2013%20Japan/20130707_115754.jpg
It passed with flying colors for both me and my mom! We were
absolutely satisfied. Not only was this meal cheaper than yesterday's
(~36 USD per person), but they gave us a lot of appetizers: minced
meat noodle, cold soup, noodle salad, olives, veggie soup.
For dessert, it was mango sorbet and coconut custard with black tea.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47842021/2013%20Japan/20130707_121326.jpg
Apparently this place has just opened in May. They are clearly trying
hard to put out their best. I am for sure going to recommend it on PTT!
I was hoping to get some night view of Kobe in the evening, so we headed
out to 六甲山 (Rokkosan). My mom has recently become a plant fanatic because
she's been taking tour guide lessons. So we visited the Rokkosan high
altitude botanic garden.
The sun had come out earlier in the day and the garden was lush green.
Much care had been taken to make this garden both educational and beautiful.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47842021/2013%20Japan/IMG_8681.jpg
There were flowers blooming:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47842021/2013%20Japan/IMG_8721.jpg
Bees buzzing:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47842021/2013%20Japan/IMG_8714.jpg
And weird plants lurking. This is called "Crystal Orchid" in Chinese.
It is the size of my pinky finger.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47842021/2013%20Japan/IMG_8705.jpg
Unfortunately for me, by the time we left the garden, the Rokkosan
Pasture had closed. I was going to go there to get cheesecake! If I
had known we wouldn't be able to make it, I would've just eaten one
when we passed by their shop in Kitano ward :(
We drove to where the cable cars ended and had a good view of the city:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47842021/2013%20Japan/IMG_8727.jpg
Our plan was to go to the hotel at nearby 摩耶山 (Mt Maya), eat dinner,
then watch the night view there. As we ate a strange Italian dinner
at Hotel De Maya, the fog came over and visibility was reduced to 3
feet by the time we came out, so we drove down the mountain and
called it a day.
Tomorrow is my visa interview in Osaka. Here's to hoping all goes well.
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