Day 4 - Osaka -> Kobe -> Osaka by Night

Dear ones,

Today was the day – we traveled to the promised, no, to the holy city of Kobe. Holy, but not for any temples – no, here something entirely different is worshiped: the cattle. For here, you can supposedly get the perfect beef in the world, bred by the probably most passionate cattle whisperers this planet has to offer. You hear quite a bit: The animals are massaged by gentle farmers, drink beer, and listen to relaxing Koto music, and probably a geisha dances through the barn at sunrise every day. Even if the Japanese can notoriously be quite nerdy, I strongly assume that not even half of these myths are true – even though the animals are indeed spared as much stress as possible.

The fact is:

Only about 7,000 Tajima/Kobe cattle are slaughtered each year, and only 5,500 of them even meet the strict criteria for real Kobe beef. The export of live cattle is strictly prohibited, and until 2010, not a gram of certified Kobe beef was allowed to officially leave the country – now it’s only limited!

All of this explains the price, of course. For a rather lean piece of Kobe beef (with less than 10 % fat content) weighing 110 grams, you pay quite a bit in restaurants – I checked at Kobe Beef 5Star – it’s already considerable. And if you want a Chateaubriand (a particularly fine, thickly cut piece of beef tenderloin – regarded as one of the tenderest and highest quality cuts), you’re casually paying ten times that: For 330 grams you’re looking at over €700.

Now, just for the truly interested: The classification “A5” consists of two parts:

Yield Grade (A to C):

A stands for a lot of meat/muscle,

C is more like “composed of skin, bones, and good intention.”

Meat Quality Grade (1 to 5):

Here, the marbling degree (B.M.S. – Beef Marbling Score – at level 5 between 8 and 12), as well as firmness, texture, color, shine, fat quality, and so on are counted.

Restaurants that serve A5 meat have an official certification for Kobe beef and such a bronze trophy in their window:

We definitely set the alarm for 9 am today, got up at 10, and were on our way by 10:30. Quick in and out at the bakery, biting into a roll on the way to the train, got on the train, and headed to Kobe – at 11:36 am we finally set foot in the holy piece of earth – and yes, of course, I immediately recited the Lord’s Prayer forwards and backwards, crossed myself, and bowed ten times (Ramona did not).

First of all, we went to the Herb Garden – a botanical garden on a 400-meter high peak, sprinkled with many small herb gardens. And no, we didn’t walk up – I couldn’t convince Ramona. Fortunately, there’s a gondola that leads up. In hindsight, it was probably the better decision not just because of the altitude, but also because of the panorama we could enjoy from the gondola. We could see all the way to Osaka and already imagined how breathtaking the famous “10-Million-Dollar-View” from Mount Rokko at night must look.

And eventually, hunger struck again – of course, as usual. But no, we didn’t go to eat decadent Kobe steak (which is why there are also no pictures of steaks with fat marbling - we prefer to do that at a food market, the low-budget variant). Instead, we went to... Chinatown! 😃 and we were happy there regarding food.

Afterwards, we did a bit of shopping here and there on Kobe's shopping street, had a sip of coffee – and then it was already time:

Sayonara, Kobe! Konichiwa, Osaka!

And hardly back in Osaka, we accidentally (or let’s honestly say: because we got lost again) stumbled into one of the craziest food halls ever. Admittedly, we are always on the lookout for good food, but this time it was not us who found the food – rather, the food found us. The Food Hall Hanshin Osaka Umeda! Of course, we picked something up and took it back to the hotel.

To top it off, we went to the Umeda Sky Building, a 170m skytower, to see Osaka at night from above. What can I say, I believe the pictures speak for themselves. In this sense - good night!