Kobe Nunobiki Herb Garden and Kitano-Cho (2nd Trip)

On our second trip to Kobe, we went to the Kobe Herb Garden. There is a rope-way that takes you to the top in about 10 minutes. You get a view of the city and the Herb Garden going up. There is a path you can walk instead of the cable car and you pass a beautiful waterfall. Once you reach the top, there is a viewing plaza. The buildings are designed after Wartburg Castle, a German castle.

  

Walking around the garden, I wished I had a green thumb to have a beautiful garden with herbs and vegetables. Unfortunately, I don't, so I'll just have to enjoy other gardens. In one of the sections of the garden there was a Lover's Bell, that couples can ring together. During our stroll, we took a small break and enjoyed laying in a hammock. There were various spots throughout the garden with hammocks for people to lay on and enjoy the weather.

After our visit to the Herb Garden, we walked to Kitano-cho. Kitano-cho is an area that has many western style homes because many foreigners lived in the area in the 19th and early 20th century. Now many of the houses are museums and you can pay to walk through them. One of the houses we saw was the Weathercock House, the former Thomas residence.

Our final stop on the trip was Ikuta Shrine. By the time we made it to the shrine, it was closed. There were a few people inside but they weren't letting other people in. We were able to get a few pictures from the outside. Ikuta Shrine goes back more than 1800 years and is thought to be one of the oldest shrines in Japan. We got there before the closing time listed on Google but it had different hours that day. It was the Enthronement ceremony of Japan's new emperor and that affected the hours of various businesses. The Enthronement ceremony only happens every few decades. Typically the Emperor rules until death and the next in line becomes emperor. However, this year things were done differently as the current emperor wanted to retire and pass the throne to his son.