We took the free shuttle bus to the downtown area. From there we got on the City Loop bus which made stops at places of interest. We missed the first stop we had decided on. Something about pushing the button to indicate your stop. :) So we decided to just stay on and start at an area where many foreigners had lived. It has become a tourist area with a number of the old homes open to the public. We visited a shrine first where there were 2 cows with bibs on, one bronze the other marble. Not sure the meaning of that! 
Then we went thru a home that was built by a German couple in the early 1900's. It had beautiful woodwork and an amazing view of the city. We then just walked around the area. It was quite crowded with Japanese tourists as it was a national holiday in Japan. We headed down the hill to some stores I'd seen from the bus. We stopped at a Starbucks also just to see it. It was in a beautiful old western style house also. At an antique shop I found some old kimono style jackets, can't remember what they are called. Bought a beautiful one for $32! How can you not for that price, beautifully lined and all silk. Then we found another store that had shorter ones for $5! Bought one there also then continued down the hill. At the corner we thought gee, for that price we should have bought one for Dorothy from our table. She loves wearing various outfits from all over the world. Bought her one then went back and bought them for the other 2 women at our table. On sale, they were $4!!! Each one is different and quite lovely.
Headed back up the hill because we decided that bus stop was the closest. One of our table mates, Rosalie, was on the bus. We were going to go to Flower Road but decided it would be better to leave our packages at the ship then come out again. We arrived at the shuttle stop and discovered a line that went a full city block. Darn. Rosalie offered to take our things back to the ship for us, which was incredibly kind, so we just crossed the street to go to the covered shopping street. There were a number of stores and restaurants and it was crowded. Not sure how far we walked but it had to be about 10 blocks. It was still a bit early but we started looking for a restaurant. Mel wanted to go to Chinatown but I figured since we were in Japan and headed to China, it would be better to eat Japanese, maybe Kobe beef?! There weren't a lot of restaurants so we headed down a side street and ended up in Chinatown which ran parallel to the walking street.
Chinatown in Kobe is quite the place to be. It appeared to be just the one street but it was packed with people and sidewalk vendors. The food on the street looked delicious. I had a black sesame seed ball. They had white also. I had only seen the standard brown ones. It was very good. There was something yellow inside, have no idea what it was but it was good. We looked at all the plastic food in front of the restaurants to see where we wanted to eat. Decided on one with a seafood noodle bowl. It was a small place with only 4 tables. It was good though! We then walked the street a bit more. Mel had shrimp on a stick. I had "shaved ice". That is what someone called it but it wasn't close to describing it. They have fresh fruit frozen solid. I chose mango. They put it in some sort of grinder so it comes out shaved. Then they put some sweetened condensed milk on top. It was very good!
Back at the shuttle stop we decided to go into the department store that was right there. It had all the designer brands and was very expensive. In Cartier I picked up a pair of sunglasses....and set off an alarm. That was fun. It was a small device on the earpiece of the glasses. A young woman hurried over and removed it. She put it in a drawer but it started going off again so she hurried with it into the back room. Some entrance! They had some beautiful things, very expensive but fun to look at. There was a De Beers store in the store! I don't think I had ever seen one before. A lot of sparkle. We used the restroom while there. Each stall in the ladies room had a baby seat attached in the corner, how convenient. Japanese bathrooms are very different from ours. We went up all 7 flights just browsing then went down to the basement. It was packed with shoppers buying any food item you might want. There were a lot of different types of sweets as well as take out type food. Very interesting.
The shuttle arrived soon after we were ready to go. We were back onboard at about 7:30. We found Rosalie and got our things back less the jacket I'd bought for her. She said she paid for hers by schlepping our stuff back to the ship. I don't think she had realized how heavy it was, 2 full bags. I also found Dorothy and gave her her jacket. She was thrilled. There was a show of local talent at 9:30 so even though we were pretty tired, we went to that. The head of the Kobe Port gave a long, drawn out speech welcoming us. He presented our Capt and 2 other staff with caps and huge bouquet of flowers. The Capt also received a large jug of saki. The first act was 5 young women baton twirlers. They were pretty good. Then came the drummers. There was one large drum in the middle with smaller ones in front and to the side of it. The large drum drummer had won several awards and was supposed to be very good. He had a stance with his legs wide apart that he never moved from. The first piece was 10 min long! At some point he pushed his top down so you could see the muscles on his back, quite impressive! Ladies were talking about them on the ship the next day! It was an enjoyable show but too late since we had an early morning tour the next day. Time to go to sleep.
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