Sannomiya & Kobe Harborland

I went to Sannomiya (三宮) and Kobe Harborland (神戸ハーバーランド) with friends around a month ago, though I'm finally getting a chance to post about it now. I wanted to post about it immediately after the day, but that obviously never happened. Since I took so many photos on the day, I figured I'd still write about it. It was a great day, to say the least.

My friends and I decided to go to Sannomiya for the day and look around the place together. Sannomiya is located in the heart of Kobe, and is only around 30 minutes away by train from where I live. Since it's the last train stop on my train line, it's as easy as getting on the train and getting off at the last stop. We initially didn't have a plan for the day and wanted to just explore the area, so we went with the flow. Once we all got together at the station, we moved on to our first destination, Ikuta shrine (生田神社). My host family had actually already taken me to this shrine on the very first day we met, though I didn't realise until I got there. Regardless, I took photos.

Cute selfie because we're cute

My beautiful the sun is blinding me face

We were starving by the time we finished up at the shrine, so we went on a hunt for lunch. This is probably one of the most unflattering angles of my face. That blob on the bottom left, yes, that's me. Lunch was decent, though we ended up getting an alcoholic drink with our food, despite it being labelled as "juice". Warning: juice is not juice in Japan.

We took a little stroll down China town (南京町) while we were in the area and ate some fab street food.

Since the whole day itself was pretty spontaneous, one of us suggested going to Kobe Harborland since there was apparently a Ghibli store at the place. Since you can't possibly say no to Ghibli, we walked all the way to Harborland. Behold, lots of pretty pictures.

This is the Kobe Port Tower (神戸ポートタワー) , which is famous for being one of Kobe's symbols.
It stands at 108 metres high.

Another cute selfie #dontjudge

We ended up finding the Ghibli store inside the little shopping complex. I could have easily bought nearly everything in that store, but I restrained myself reluctantly. I did buy 2 totoro clear files since I didn't want to leave the store empty handed. So much totoro in that store, I just nope. I ended up walking out of that store as soon as I bought my things, for fear of wanting to buy more. Some people ended up leaving after that, so it was only me and 2 other friends who chose to stay back. Now that I think about it, it was probably the better option. I don't remember how long we were there for, but we walked around a bit more and took lots of photos until the sun finally went down.

The sun eventually went down and the whole place lit up. Three of us stayed back that day, so we wandered around the entire complex taking photos, and admiring the bright lights. The place was a lot prettier at night, in my opinion. We sat down after a while, just to take a break and admire the view. I'd definitely recommend visiting Harborland at night!

The prettiest ferris wheel! It also changed colours from time to time.

While we were sitting down and having a chat, we all came to the conclusion that it was the perfect occasion for alcohol. There ended up being a huge tax-free shop within walking distance from where we were, so we each bought a couple of drinks and some snacks to snack on. Theres nothing better than chilling with friends, drinking, and admiring a fab view. It just seemed right.

Selfie #193749174. You probably can't tell, but at this point we were all slightly intoxicated and feeling it. 

I don't remember how long we sat there, but we realised it was already getting late so we decided to head home. At that point, all I wanted to do was crawl into my bed and not wake up. Still, I knew we had to make the trip home. Just the thought of going home and having to climb up the steep mountain to my house already put me off. I think if anything, the alcohol actually made the hike back home somewhat bearable. I was still able to take photos on our way out, so I was more than okay after drinking.

All in all, it was a great day and it ended up being a memorable night!