What a day!

I had forgotten the perils of communal living, just a thin curtin and 3 walls separated me from the other backpackers and in a somewhat less than comfortable bed - I can tell it might take another night or so to get used to it. Waking up was both very much before my alarm and difficult to get the motivation to again haul to another city. I had no idea what Kobe had to offer but I pushed through, and I'm very glad I did. The commute is the difficult part, it is always busy and takes a while both ways, it is energy draining but usually worth it. Probablyt the most frustrating part is that the Japanese do not have an unspoken designated side of the path to walk on - it's a free for alll.in Australia, if you walk on the wrong side of the path you'll probably get hit and/or cursed at profanely. I'm not used to zig zagging on a path.

Once I got to Kobe, I couldn't find the information desk for the life of me, so I asked the ticket booth officer in very broken Japanese and eventually found it in the harbour mall. My inspiration to keep going was that on train on the way in I saw that the city was surrounded by mountains and ocean - a good start. After a lot (a lot) of confusion, I made it to the bus stop where I was going to hop on the city loop but alas, I saw the harbour and went for a wonder -it was a dreary day but I decided to call it Little Sydney because it could have well been a break off of Darling Harbour and I wouldn't have known. After wondering around, still not feeling inspired - I hopped on the bus and hoped for the best to find something to do. After a full loop, I saw that there was an option to jump off and climb to a Herbarium so I figured, why not? I swapped from what I now know as the Devil Birkenstocks into reliable thongs and made my way up the steps up the side of the mountain, quickly regretting it. Then, I came across the option to catch a cable car to the top. Being lazy and wanting a bit of an adrenaline rush, I caught one. I cannot describe in mere words what it was like. I got the car to myself and all I could do was laugh and smile, the view was indescribable. I was hanging (nearly vertically) above dense, green, mountain jungle - it was so Jurassic Park! To my left was more mountain full of gullies and gorges, and to my right was firstly a waterfall but then a view across the city and ocean for as far as the eye could see. You couldn't look in a single direction without being mermerised by the nature surrounding you. I found me some good wilderness.

As I arrived at the top, I realised you could either walk up the mountain througb the herbarium and garden, hike the mountain (lol) or catch the cable car. The gardens zig zagged all the way to the bottom - incredible! The gardens themselves had flowers I'd never seen and were full of colour and in the middle of a european style village with shops and food. I couldn't have asked for a better view or a better atmosphere. And I'd found it all by accident. I couldn't be happier - it renewed my joie de vivre and I did some window shopping after hopping off a cramped bus.

I tried speaking french to the japanese workers in a french bakery, not a success, they do not in fact speak french. Or english. But, I did buy two rolls. I played food roulette and I got one roll with shrimp....and mac and cheese, and another that has hash browns and green onion and mayonnaise. Despite pulling the short straw - they were surprisingly delicious. Anyway, I got on another chokkas train and got back to Osaka and rested up for an hour before venturing back out to the city at night. I think a lot of restraunts don't enjoy trying to serve tourists so a lot of their food is written in japanese - not even using roman numerals. My tummy was grumbling and I needed some fresh food. The food here is absolutely delicious, but is all cooked so I ended up buying a salad from a family mart, some delicious apple juice (seriously, I have no idea what they do to it but the apple juice here is amazing) and came back to the hostel. A bunch of guys, mostly staff here at the DIO were jamming on guitars and a drum, they covered the Beatles and Coldplay. I didn't join - their sesh was awesome though, they sang in english but only spoke japanese. It was odd but then it got acoustic and I decided I was in love with all of them. That leaves me here, in bed, showered and ready to watch some Brooklyn Nine Nine and read my book and sleep. Im looking forward to a sleep in (assisted by my ipod this time) and just riding around Osaka tomorrow. On the agenda: Umeda Sky Building, Pokemon Centre (!!!!!!!!!!!!), Natural History Museum and shopping. I'm glad to be skipping public transport for a day!

Until tomorrow!

xo Rach