Saturday in Kobe

A day or so before my parents arrived Rex had begun coming down with a upper respiratory problem that got worse as the week went on. Between the fact he had begun at his new school this same week and it is a long 30 min bike ride from our house and that several times this week he had to ride in a downpour, by Saturday he was feeling pretty bad. After our day of walking all over Nishinomiya and the accumulation of several new blisters and the fact that Rex didn't feel up to going out with us, we decided to take it easy and headed out to Kobe to get a look at the city and the shopping streets.
Thanks to our upstairs neighbor, Claudia, we had basic instructions on which bus to catch to go to the different train stations, so we headed out. We caught our the bus to the JR station (really, easier said than done) and headed in for the Walkers first of many train rides in Japan.
Unfortunately, the blisters got the best of us not too far down the street in Kobe. But luckily, I remembered about a Trolley that runs a circle route around the city of Kobe and we could catch it at one of the stops on the next block. Riding the Trolley was an experience in itself. Apparently there is no limit to how many could get on. Basically it seemed that if someone was standing at the bus stop they would be allowed on, no matter how packed. It took awhile, but after a few stops we all had seats although we were a bit split up. I tried to point out a few interesting sights I knew of as Rex & I have explored a lot of Kobe already. We rode the loop and saw a few places they thought they'd like to come back later and see. My mom really liked the Kitano district, which is an area with lots of old buildings and houses with international architectural style that were the houses of foreign businessmen and Consulates from other countries developed last century when Kobe began to be an active Sea Port. We made a plan to return later in the week to explore.
We headed home in the early evening to check up on Rex and have dinner at home. It might not sound like a very active day, but believe me - just walking from one end of a train station to the other is a bit of a hike. And that's just getting out to the street. So I'm afraid the day wasn't as easy as I had hoped, but it could have been worse I guess :).