Kobe day 2

The weather was lovely so we thought we would go up Mount Rokko for the view of Kobe, Kyoto and Osaka. The Tourist Information people put us off hiking up - 5 had got lost in the last few months and we know from experience that signs are not the best. So we took a local train then walked uphill to the Ropeway station.

When we got back to Kobe we visited the Earthquake Memorial and Disaster Reduction Museum. First we watched a 3D film about the 2011 tsunami in Japan - it was horrifying to see people swept off the roof of a 3 storey building. Next we were ushered in to see a film about the earthquake and emerged from that into a mock up of a street after the quake. The displays were very well done and took us from the immediate aftermath to the rebuilding of the city and communities. A volunteer demonstrated the effect of a quake on structures and was delighted to learn Martin was a civil engineer.

In the evening we read an article in the Japan Times about John Kerry's visit to Hiroshima in which Keiko, the survivor who we had met, was quoted extensively. On the news was an item about a big fire in the Shinjuku district we had visited twice in Tokyo.