Last weekend, I went to Kobe for the first time since December, to try Kobe beef (at last!) and to see Chinese New Year festivities in Kobe’s Chinatown.

A friend and I ate a multi-course Kobe beef lunch at Kobe Plaisir near Sannomiya station.

The beef was very good, with that rare umami flavor, but there was room for improvement. I hate to criticize something so luxurious as Kobe beef, but the honest truth is that the beef wasn't as good as I’d expected. I purposely ordered the sirloin cut, which is more fatty than the fillet cut (I like the fat), but it ended up being so fatty that I couldn't taste the actual beef very well.

Also, even though we ate teppanyaki style, fresh off the grill, the medium-rare cut was strangely cold. So cold that I couldn't help but think about it being meat, and the poor cow I was eating (does this mean I really will turn into a vegetarian, or at least a pescetarian, one of these days, as I sometimes suspect I will? What about my love for In 'n' Out?).

The meal was beautifully presented, though, and cooked with exquisite artistry by the chef at the grill in front of us. The way he worked those utensils was like a dance. He was also very gracious about my taking an endless number of pictures. (Note: I recently upgraded from my point-and-shoot to a digital SLR—I think it’s going to become my new best friend.)

The sides that came with the beef were delicious as well, including sashimi, a yummy potato pureed soup, and an excellent garlic fried rice that the chef fried right on the grill. Yum. Or, as they/we say here, oishii.

Below, pictures from the restaurant, as well as pictures from the very crowded Chinatown, where there was lion dancing, oodles of Japanese-influenced dim sum, and panda-themed vending machines.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Last weekend, I went to Kobe to see the Luminarie, a light festival held every December to commemorate the Great Hanshin earthquake, the devastating earthquake that leveled Kobe in 1995. This year’s Luminarie was held from December 3 to 14.

Before the Luminarie began for the night, I explored Kobe a little by foot. It was only my second time in Kobe—the first time was for an errand-type trip for groceries from Kobe’s Chinatown and household goods from Kobe’s Ikea (which, incidentally, is exactly like every other Ikea I’ve visited in the US, down to the layout and meatball sauce—it’s strangely comforting, as if stepping through the doors of Kobe’s Ikea beams you into the Ikea of Anywhere, California).

Kobe is an attractive, walkable port city with mountains on one side and the Inland Sea on the other. It reminds me of San Francisco—something about the grayish shade of light there, its closeness to the water, and the grayness and newness of the buildings (compared to the rest of Japan, which, for the most part, is freaking old).

As I mentioned, there’s even a Chinatown, Nankin-machi, which is one of only about three Chinatowns in Japan (there is also one in Nagasaki, and the biggest one is in Yokohama).

Before the light festival, I walked through Chinatown to Meriken Park, which is on the harbor. It includes Kobe Port Tower, the Kobe Maritime Museum, and a memorial to the Great Hanshin earthquake victims.

I also visited Harborland, which is a shopping and amusement park area, with a picturesque shopping complex called Mosaic. Mosaic has a small park called Mosaic Garden, which overlooks a ferris wheel and amusement park below.

In Mosaic Garden, there is also a special gazebo for the holidays called, “Shakehands.” You step inside the gazebo with that special someone, each put one hand on a metal grip in the middle of the gazebo, and then you use your free hand to shake hands with the other person. When you shake hands, voila! The gazebo lights up blue. What better way to display your affection during the holiday season than by shaking hands?

Trivia: In America, Christmas is a time for families to gather, while New Year’s Eve is for couples. In Japan, New Year’s Eve is when you spend quality time with the family. Christmas is for a different sort of quality time.

And one of my favorite parts of my visit to Mosaic? Snow! Fake snow, that is. At five o’clock, frenetic Christmas music started to play in the mall and fake snow blew overhead. Another one of those sneaky, delightful surprises I often encounter these days.

After I visited Mosaic, it was dusk, and I walked over to the Marutamachi area, where the walking route to the light festival began. The crowds were incredible. It was the last Saturday of the festival, and there were literally thousands of people lined up in the streets, as if it were a New Year’s Eve party.

The city had blocked off several streets for crowd control, and there was a carefully mapped route that the crowds followed to get to the actual streets where the light displays were. It took at least an hour-and-a-half to walk from the start of the route to the light displays, which were really only a few blocks away, near Sannomiya station. It was an orderly crowd, though (yay, Japan!), of mostly couples and families.

The actual light display begins with an arcade of lights that arch over a few blocks of streets. The lights are colorful and gaudy. The Italian government donated the lights, which are each individually hand-painted. Unfortunately, my camera doesn’t do too well with nighttime shots, but you get the general picture (no pun intended).

After walking through the arcade, you walk up into a small park that has a grand, ornate circular set-up of lights that resembles an oversized gazebo of lights.

It was pretty, and yet it also reminded me of a cross between Caesar’s Palace and It’s a Small World—as if the inside of a casino had been transported to downtown Kobe. I prefer something a little more subtle. The onlookers were all delighted by the lights, though, and took plenty of pictures (like me!).

As with any good festival in Japan, one of the best parts of the festival was the street food. There were multiple blocks of food stands, with okonomiyaki (a sort of Japanese “pancake”), taiyaki (a fish-shaped waffle stuffed with red bean paste or chocolate), takoyaki (fried balls of dough with octopus meat inside), and much more.

I had some karaage (deep fried chicken) and these adorable little egg waffles that I didn’t know the name of—no pictures of them this time, though! I was too busy stuffing my face.

As I head off on my holiday travels, I wish you and yours a very happy holiday season, and the best New Year’s yet.