#Christmas Market

Our last day in Kōbe started with a harbour cruise. After that we checked out the Sōrakuen landscape garden, where the first signs of autumn colours were already showing.

But the highlight of the day was visiting the Nunobiki Herb Gardens. We walked to a waterfall first, before hopping on the cable car to the upper viewing platform. As luck would have it, a little German Christmas market opened up there today, with wooden figures from the Ore Mountains, mulled wine, and currywurst hotdogs. After that we sniffed our way around the attached herb garden, before heading back to the viewing platform after sunset to admire Kōbe by night.

A magical day, and it’s hard for us to say goodbye to Kōbe tomorrow. But we’re off to our next stop: Ōsaka.

Tōkyō’s old landmark, the Tōkyō Tower, is modelled on the Eiffel Tower in Paris. We went up to the lower observation deck at a height of 150 metres and enjoyed the view over Tōkyō and the neighbouring city of Yokohama.

And that’s where we headed afterwards. The Christmas market at the Yokohama Red Brick Warehouses is the biggest we’ve seen in Japan so far. There are loads of food stalls there with mulled wine and bratwurst, but also more unusual dishes like potato soup or Hoppelpoppel, plus stalls selling gifts.

The Christmas market at the Roppongi Hill Mori Tower in Tōkyō is a bit more traditional. It is quite small, but it’s Tōkyō’s oldest and mostly offers typical German gifts.

We finished off the evening with the illumination at the Caretta Shiodome. It claims to be the best in Tōkyō. It’s a light spectacle set to the music from the Disney animation “Frozen”. We liked the Starlight Garden better, though.

Today we took it easy wandering through Tokyo. In the Asakusa district, we first visited the Senso-ji. The temple is a must-do on our itinerary every time we visit Tokyo.

After that, we popped into a little gallery where artists were exhibiting miniatures and photos of miniature worlds.

There’s another German Christmas market by the Tokyo Skytree. It’s really small, though, with the selection pretty much limited to mulled wine (more of a mulled punch really), crêpes, beer and bratwurst. But to make up for it, a Japanese a cappella group was singing their songs by the Christmas tree.

The Rikugien landscape garden offered a nice bit of Momiji vibe in the evening light. After sunset, the park gets lit up with spotlights, giving you a completely different view of nature.

Today was another travel day, so there isn’t much to report. Arriving in Ōsaka, we visited our first Christmas market at the Umeda Sky Building. It imitates a German Christmas market down to the last detail. There are stalls with crêpes, pizza, mulled wine, beer, sausages and gift items. There’s a Christmas tree, a nativity scene, a carousel. They even thought of the weather, as it was raining just like back home. 😄

For dessert, we grabbed a cheesecake from Uncle Rikurō, a speciality in Ōsaka. The cakes are freshly baked right in front of the customers’ eyes.