2023 January Japan Part 2 - Kobe, Beef, Coffee

 read in reverse!

We visited a kitchen furnishing  / Toto store and bought some sweets after. We took an early Limou bus to nikko airpot at KIX and had our dinner at the airport hotel. All in all Kobe is a compact city, one can travel out to other places but we're not purely there for sight-seeing. 

We went crazy and queued 2 hours for this Kobe Gyudon Hiroshige. Operated by just one man and having only 8 seats, he would cook and serve all 8 in a single batch. Yes the beef was superb, but not worth the energy spent in the cold for this. I went to Yellow Batt soon after .

The issue was that the ticketing counter only took cash and for the first time ever, we travelled without bringing cash! YouTrip/ Revolut cards came to the rescure! Youtrip would charge SGD$5 per withdrawal while Revolut supposedly charge nothing until SGD$350 (not sure if per day or per transaction). One ATM charged 110 yen with minimum 10k yen withdrawal. Another charge nothing and minimum 1k yen withdrawal. In all only these tickets and two meals required cash and all others were able to use YouTrip or Revolut! YouTrip is a Master card and Revolut is a Visa. On the Hokkaido Limousine Bus to CTS airport, only Visa was accepted.

After a hectic first day with tons of eating tops, we took it more leisurely on day 2. I went scouting for a power bank and other essentials, and made sure I found the bus stop which we were to take the bus back to KIX.

Cliche but ended the night with  Ippudo ramen.

We almost rejected this dish as we just had oysters earlier. But we were soo happy to have a portion each of ourselves. The Oyster Stew was out of this world!

Sasa Seiran, hole in the wall but yes they serve Sake 'properly'! In a wine glass! The place has like ~7 seats and poor ventilation and every other chap is a smoke meant our eyes and nose started to burn soon after.

   A superb sake bar 

We've been drinking Aomori's white and red apple juice and finally we get to eat the real thing!

Crab was meh, mussels/too oily, skipped the rice!

Very nice stount! Low alcohol!

V good oysters.

Oysters were calling out for mee..

Visited Issey Miyake, where Wifey's bag made a homecoming.

Blue bottle coffee and marble cake, not impressed. Didn't finish :P

Walked passed Chinatown

Many cute stores litter the area and we snagged this Ghibli's!

A superb fine along Harbor road (en-route to Anpanman's museum). Pretty little shophouses!

Aint this a postcard perfect blue skies with white clouds? Fab weather ~8 degrees. 

A walk around town towards Meriken park!

Awesomeness on a pair of chopsticks. Yes i'm salivating as I'm writing this post!

Looking decently fresh still?

I chose the ~4500 yen lunch set. It was oh-so-good. not too fat nor feel bloated/heavy etc. It was oily for sure but never tired.

Super touristy but it was a perfect start

First stop, SteakLand! Wifey's order.

Good morning KOBE!

We finally reached our hotel remm plus Kobe Sannomiya~12am ish. It's pretty small but modern and the toilet was awesome. <3 TOTO!!! Essentially the most convenient location for the airport limou to drop (need to lug luggage for ~10mins, 1-2 junctions etc. Return airport limousine was even nearer. No breakfast needed at hotel as it's right at the heart of Sannomiya with everything that one needs.

2023 January Japan Part 1 - Singapore Airlines Business Glass SQ622 B787-10 SIN - KIX

 Read in reverse!

Reached KIX at ~915pm, no automated gates and at least 2 flights landing at the same time = jam and we missed the 10pm bus. We took the 11pm bus instead and reached Kobe at midnight local time!

Miyakanbai junmai ginjo

Miyakanbai junmai ginjo

Miyakanbai junmai ginjo

Created by Yoshihiro Murata of Kikunoi from Kyoto, the Hanakoireki teases the senses with the flavorful sesame beancurd with sasabi jelly and perilla blossoms.

UDon tastes amazing at altitude too.

Other picks are the grilled miso flavoured black cod. The rice was fabulous too!

Miyakanbai junmai ginjo was punching above it's weight. Deep flavours and pretty smooth too!

Everything was hitting

Yes, still a top top dish!

MM having some Sake

Nice view of the B787-10's engines.

Mostly poor contrast photos!

Multi-page menu awaits! Only thing lacking was the hot-towel !

Woot!

When it's too far to reach the big screen, use the one next to you!

Hallo!

Final weather check

Echoworks e-sim loaded! $14 for 15 days of 5 Gig. cheap!?

The illusive 11D/F weren't available during booking and I forgot to check during the online check in.

Pancakes looking forward to the trip too!

Really looked forward to this pair of J tickets!

It's off with our classic 4-luggage set up! Mashimaro taking the main! 

The journey began with Melbourne --> Osaka way back in 2021! Stop over trick was used with Singapore of the layover. Chinese new year was 22nd January this year and it a perfect leg to get out on 19th January, at a great timing flight of 2pm.