Kobe - Where's the Beef?

Today, Saturday, we are in Kobe.  Did we have any beef?  You'll have to wait to find out.

First, we'll go all the way back to Wednesday night where our search for sushi ended at the wonderful Japanese Market Buffet aboard the ship.

Moving on to Thursday when we were in Naha, Okinawa.  Naha was a much larger and livelier city than the previous ports.  We took the shuttle bus to the drop off by the main shopping street.  Walking up the street our first stop was the 7-Eleven!  You might ask, why the 7-Eleven?  Let me tell you.  Ray Carr, an Oceania Cruise Director, had told us that the best egg salad sandwiches in the world were at 7-Elevens in Japan.  Well, I'll say it was a decent sandwich but Linda's egg salad beats it by miles.

We continued up the shopping street until we turned off to head to the Makishi Public Market where we did our usual wander.

Ultimately, we found a restaurant in an alley off of the market and had a nice lunch of poke and maguro.

 

From there, we made our way back to the shuttle bus stop and the ship.  Linda did great on the roughly 2 hour walk.

Friday was a welcome day at sea.  The low light was a losing bingo experience.  The highlight was the fun game that CD Paul Baya plays - majority rules trivia.  One of the questions was to name the movie you would like to star in and Linda and I put "Barbie".  Later Paul sent us a message with this photo.

Now for Kobe.  The shuttle bus dropped near the entrance to Chinatown.  (As a quick aside, the Oceania shuttle bus service at all of them ports has been excellent and really welcome given Linda's hip).  There were some magnolia trees in bloom by the entrance.  No cherry blossoms yet though I may saw some on the shuttle bus ride back.  Chinatown was bustling with many options for food.

After a while, we left Chinatown to make our way to the Sorakuen Garden.   We passed an interesting marker in the sidewalk  (indicating a fire hydrant) and the Hyogo House along the way.

After entering the garden, we encountered an older Japanese gentleman who engaged us in a conversation.  His broken English was pretty understandable, especially when he said that we must be rich if we are cruising.

The garden was a welcome respite from the city.  We sat by the pond and enjoyed watching the children feeding the fish.

Leaving the garden, we walked back to Chinatown with the intent of getting some steamed buns for lunch.  When we got back, it was way more crowded than earlier.  Linda had toyed with the idea of trying the Kobe beef but decided against it.  Unfortunately, everyone seemed to only have buns with pork or other meat, so we opted to try shrimp and sesame balls.

So, we returned to the ship where we were able to enjoy lunch in the beautiful sunshine.

Tonight, we overnight here before another short day in Kobe.  We will be returning in about 2 weeks and we are hopeful of taking the train into Kyoto.  Linda's determination and perseverance have been an inspiration.  Our nearly 3 hour outing today included about 5000 steps!

Peace and blessings,

Linda and Larry