Just when we thought there couldn’t be any more, er, special holiday lighting displays than the [not-so-eco-friendly] Kobe Eco Angel, then Nankinmachi raised the bar. We salute you, Chinatown.

(Fun fact: The Japanese Nankinmachi tourists seemed to especially enjoy me taking this picture. Carl has no language barrier.)

{Nankinmachi, Kobe, Japan}

Welcome to Nankinmachi, Kobe’s [rather small] Chinatown.

{Nankinmachi, Kobe, Japan}

I think someone needs to phone the MIB (good thing there are all those baby blue telephone booths dotting the island.)

Actually, this is the Kobe Fashion Museum. No really.

Oh Japan.

{Kobe Fashion Museum|Rokko Island, Kobe, Japan}

If the Tardis and a phone booth had a lovechild, this would be it.

{Rokko Island, Kobe, Japan}

Carl sweeps two prominent light exhibitions in one city in one night.

This is the Kobe Eco Angel and when we’re not marveling at actually how hideous the design can be (especially when not lit up), we’re snickering about how eco-unfriendly lighting up this structure every night for 4 weeks must be.

It’s okay, Kobe: we love you anyway.

This is 神戸ルミナリエ (Kobe Luminarie), a memorial to the victims of the Great Hanshin Earthquake that devastated the city in 1995. The displays are lit up for a few hours every night for two weeks. It was truly beautiful.

My favorite fact about Luminarie: each lightbulb is handpainted. Wow.

Mmm, chimichangas(left)…but Carl is staring down a chicken burrito. That pile of sour cream and “guacamole” was taken care of with a basket of tortilla chips that tasted of salt lick (but still were no worse than anything else Japan calls “chips”). The burrito was no Chevy’s or Chipotle but having eaten no tortilla-wrapped anything for more than two months (painful for the Americans that we are), we were more than happy to have it :)

Having come by train, I was feeling festive and ordered a piña colada to complete the Mexican restaurant experience. What I got was more or less white, lumpy rum with a teeny pineapple chunk on a little sword stuck in it. Thanks, Japan!

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Shinsaibashi, Osaka, Japan

Carl mounts a plywood cactus (which we were seriously afraid of breaking…) and surveys the advertisement.  It was not an illusion: there really was a Mexican restaurant to be found in Japan. As Americans, we were happy (with a healthy dose of skepticism since this is Japan after all…)

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El Pancho
Osaka (Shinsaibashi), Japan

http://el-pancho.com/english/

Here Carl admires the Kobe Port Tower from a distance as the weather was beginning to take a turn for the worse (though for all it threatened, it never did actually rain.)

Someday we will come and pay 600yen (~$7USD) to go up it and get a view of the city—but probably at night because that’s when our harbor city really shines.

My 600yen was later well spent on tea, ramen, and a strawberry donut at Mister Donut. Mmm, Mister Donut…

{Meriken Park, Kobe, Japan}

Art at Biennale was everything from classic colors and canvases…

{Meriken Park, Kobe, Japan}