Kobe:
As Rachel is affiliated with Kobe University during her research, we have had a couple of opportunities to train it around the bay to do school-related things plus some sightseeing. It's only about half an hour from the main Osaka station to downtown Kobe, even on the local trains, so it's a pretty painless trip (even shorter than some trips within Osaka) and there appears to be a lot to see. The city itself is fairly narrow, being sandwiched between the sea and the mountains, which makes for some awesome views, both from the city and from above it (from the University, which is up in the hills, you can get a great view of both Kobe and Osaka). Unfortunately, I've neglected to get any pictures of these views, but I do have a gigantic fish....
Fish (giant) - do not worry, it's not real
We found this fish down in Meriken Park, which is a plaza down by the port of Kobe. Meriken Park is also the site of one of the memorials for the Kobe earthquake of 1995, complete with videos, photo plaques and preserved portion of the original pier showing the damage as it was on the morning of the quake. It was actually quite informative, especially since I don't have strong memories from the time of the quake back when it happened. The fish (to return to a lighter note) was located outside of the Café Fish, which was surprisingly good, especially since we were just really hungry and were willing to put up with tourist trap food.
Going back in time, I also have several pictures from our day at the Osaka aquarium. I could go on for ages about how awesome it was, but I'll try to restrain myself. One of the first things I noticed, and appreciated, was that the aquarium begins on the 8th floor and spirals down. This helped keep the traffic flowing well and also allowed the visitors to see the same tanks from different perspectives. This included the land animals that live in conjunction with water environments on the top levels. Anyway, it was a great time, and here are some highlights in picture form.
Tiny crab on a rock wall, they were seriously tiny.
Huge fish - like seriously huge. The ones on the bottom are at least 4-5 feet long.
Capybara. Also a very large mammal.
Rachel contemplating the penguins in their curiously green light.
Pacific whitesided dolphin. There were a bunch of these and there were being quite show-off-y.
Whale Shark.
Again, hard to tell through the thick glass and with a lack of non-fish referents, but he was easily 15-20 feet long. According to wikipedia that is barely over half as large as the average whale shark.
Rays.
Weird large fish in the large tank with the whale shark.
Elvis fish.
Sea turtle.
CREEPY crabs in dark tank.
super tiny jellyfish.
Finally, we have found a Japanese craft brewery. It looks kinda corporate, but so is everything else here. The important part is that the beers are really good. The company's website is here: http://www.yonasato.com/
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