A Winter Day Trip in Kobe

I had a layover in Kobe in January and took the opportunity to explore a bit. Kobe isn't very big, and a day is enough to see it all. I arrived in Kobe by plane around 9:00 AM and bought a 1 day pass for 700 yen at the Kobe Airport (free for the airport line and subway, plus an 800 yen discount voucher for Kobe amusement facilities), valid until the end of March this year, but it's no longer available in June. By around 10:00 AM, I went to see the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge from a distance. You can go on the bridge, but it requires a few hundred yen for a ticket. At 12:00 PM, I returned to Kobe's Nankinmachi, also known as Chinatown, where there's a good Wagyu beef restaurant with lunch sets ranging from 1,000 to 2,000 yen. In the afternoon, I visited the Ijinkan, which are residences built by foreigners in Kobe during the Meiji period. Each house requires a ticket, and there's an option for a combined ticket. It's worth visiting for those interested in history, but if you don't like walking, you might want to skip it as these houses are built on a hillside and it's quite a walk. Around 4:00 PM, I took a cruise at Kobe Port, which cost 1,500 yen and lasted about 45 minutes. From the boat, you can see the entire Kobe area, which I highly recommend. I left Kobe at 5:00 PM to catch my flight. (Kobe also has Nunobiki Herb Garden and Mount Maya as attractions, but both were closed when I visited.)