I’m walking around the port area of Kobe with my LUMIX G9ProII in hand. Since I already posted an article about the Kobe Customs Office, I think it will be easier to tell the story by arranging the photos in reverse order of the actual route I took, from the customs office to Meriken Park and Harborland.
Up to the point where I passed the New Port Pier, where cargo ships and ferries come and go, it is a quiet area lined with industrial port facilities. I love the color of the steel rusted by the sea breeze.
The blurred object in the background is a Coast Guard patrol boat.
Beyond that was the mooring area for pilot boats. In the distance, the Oriental Hotel came into view, and the bustle gradually increased.
A little further on is Meriken Park. There was a large holiday event going on, and it was very crowded.
In one relatively quiet corner, the collapsed old Meriken Wharf was preserved as a disaster site.
By 1995, I had already left Kobe with my family and did not experience the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake at all. While I refer to Kobe as my hometown, I feel a sense of inferiority toward the local people because of this. For the past thirty years, I have consciously and unconsciously avoided information about the earthquake.
Standing before the ruins once again, various complex emotions well up inside me, but regardless of my sentimental feelings, Meriken Park was bustling with event attendees and tourists on this holiday. After somehow making my way through the crowdy zone of Maritime Museum, Port Tower, and the tourist boat piers are lined up, I finally arrived at Harborland.
Despite knowing that the cloudy sky wouldn’t make for good photos, I decided to snap one postcard-style shot just in case.
The colors are dull, but even so, you can see that the newly renovated Port Tower has a rather bold appearance.
By the way, Kobe Port has not only this “front face” that is easily visible to tourists, but also a “back face” or “true face” as a traditional industrial port. The main focus of this walk is to explore the “true Kobe Port.”
Of course, I know that once the sun sets, the Harborland area offers beautiful night views as the “front face,” but I can’t linger here and miss the class reunion that was the original purpose of my visit to Kobe. Let’s leave it at that for now.
※Bonus
While wandering around Harborland, I unexpectedly came across this monument. I didn’t know that such a great writer was from this area.
I can’t mention the plot because it would spoil the story, but I was blown away by the “big twist” in Seishi Yokomizo’s work. It was made into a series of movies in the 1970s and became a huge hit, but I preferred the original novel (though I haven’t read that many of them).
In any case, he was born in Higashikawasaki-cho, Kobe City.
