Beautiful fall foliage at the Koko-en Japanese garden. |
Take-no-niwa, the garden of bamboo, at the Koko-en Japanese garden. |
The flower clock in Kobe. |
Jason checking out the many many options in the vending machines. |
Jason and I went of for some Kobe Beef which was to date my best meal ever. First out was the appetizer plate. We each got a sampler plate of a slice of beef, a shrimp like thing, a sardine like thing, some pork kind of thing and a couple of other items. We didn't really know what we were eating, but it was all about the experience. |
Jason eating his appetizer. |
Next they brought me my bowl of rice and put a piece of aluminum foil on the iron plate grill in front of us. They also brought us a little plate of salt and some soy sauce. The salt helps bring out the flavor of the beef. The chef carefully prepared several vegetables and laid them out on the foil in front of us. Every step of the meal was a work of art, nothing was just thrown together. |
Next course, salad! |
It took almost more patience & self control than I could muster to wait for all the vegetables and beef to be finished before digging in because it all looked so good. The chef laid the veggies out in front of us on the foil as they were prepared, but the very last step was the grilled garlic cloves which you eat with the beef, so it was best to wait until everything was there before digging in. |
It took almost more patience & self control than I could muster to wait for all the vegetables and beef to be finished before digging in because it all looked so good. |
The chef laid the veggies out in front of us on the foil as they were prepared, but the very last step was the grilled garlic cloves which you eat with the beef, so it was best to wait until everything was there before digging in. |
Before we started in on the main part of our meal, we put on the bibs they provided and then took a piece of meat, a garlic clove, and a little bit of salt and soy sauce and took a magical bite. The Kobe Beef doesn't really taste like beef at all, it just melts in your mouth, a lot like butter. |
I felt like the meal was absolutely perfect, but yet there was more! They brought out dessert, and our choice of tea or coffee. We both chose coffee and they brought out real (super thick) cream for the coffee. I wish I had taken a video of pouring the cream in the coffee because the way it swirled around and floated to the top was mesmerizing. Dessert was a fruit plate which was also amazingly good. The meal cost us each about $75-$80, but it was totally worth it. The best meal EVER! I can't imagine what it would take to beat this. Great food, great service, great company! |
Incense burning at a pagoda in Nara. |
The Five Storied Pagoda in Nara. |
I bought some deer cookies and shared them with these girls so I could make friends and get someone to eventually take my picture with the deer. |
Feeding the deer. |
The deer were quite aggressive in coming up to me to get their cookies. |
These boys were sitting around in a park eating lunch and yelled "Hi, nice to meet you" across the field to get me to come over. They just wanted to talk to me and have me take their picture. In exchange one boy gave me one of his snacks which looked kind of like a cheeto, but it was super hot. My mouth was on fire for quite awhile. |
If you bow to the deer, they will bow first before taking a cookie. This boy was demonstrating. |
Todaiji Temple in Nara. |
The big buddha inside the Todaiji Temple in Nara. |
I'm not sure of the significance (if any) of this post inside the Todaiji Temple, but children line up to crawl through it. |
Todaiji Temple in Nara. |
A field trip to the Todaiji Temple. |
This man with a Minolta camera saw me with my Canon and called me over. He was very excited to see what he thought was another photographer. We discovered we have a language in common: Canon, Minolta, Pentax, Nikon (pronounced Neekon). |
Self-portrait taken on top of a tower on Mt. Rokko where I took a cable car and hiked even further to watch the sunset over Kobe. |
I chose Mt. Rokko as my sunset-viewing spot for the evening. |
Although I was frozen to the bone, I stayed up on Mt. Rokko until it was dark enough to see the lights of Kobe below. I could even pick out the ship. |
The Mt. Rokko cable car. |