"Kobe - City by the Coast" Top 5 Page for this destination Hyogo Prefecture Tip by bkoon

You will pass-by Kobe to and fro Kyoto and Kimeji. Kobe is a coastal city with a big port. I was there for merely half-a-day. I was at the Port of Kobe Harbourland where the Kobe Tower is.

Many remember this city as they recall the destructive earthquake which unfortunately happened there.

At 5.46 am on January 17, 1995, the Southern Hyogo Prefectural Earthquake (the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake), the first major quake to directly hit a Japanese urban area, inflicted unprecedented heavy damage on such cities and their surrounding areas in the Hanshin-Awaji region as Kobe, Awaji, Ashiya and Nishinomiya. The powerful jolt, which lasted barely 20 seconds, took 4,569 lives in Kobe city alone, practically reducing the elegant harbor city developed through many years of our ancestors' hard work to mere piles of debris and depriving many people of the very basis of their livelihood.

Some Main Highlights of Kobe :
- Kobe Chinatown
- Kobe Tower
- Mosaic
- Kobe Maritime Museum
- Kobe Erathquake Museum (Highly Recommended as I read so much about this and I believe it is worth the visit although I did not have the time to pop by.)

Website: http://www.city.kobe.jp/index-e.html