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Kobe: History and industry of the modern port
city
Excursion
leaders: Koji Hasegawa (Kobe University)
and Hirotsugu Fujita (Kobe
University)
Kobe, situated between the Rokko
Mountains and the Seto Inland
Sea, was one of the first modern ports to be opened to foreign countries in
1868. Kobe’s
history, however, dates back to ancient times.
From Kyoto, we head straight for the prehistoric
site of Goshiki-zuka Tumulus,
194-meter long and 18-meter high, built in the early fifth century. The huge
tomb (restored in the 1970s) and the Great Akashi Straight Bridge
(built in 1998) can be viewed from a nearby hill. This is a vantage point
from where you experience both a prehistoric and an ultramodern monument!
Goshikizuka Tumulus and the Great Akashi Straight Bridge
We then move to Kobe Port
and enjoy a 45-minute Kobe Harbour Cruise. The cruise takes you the
Mitsubishi Shipyard and Port
Island, an artificial
island reclaimed in 1966–2006, which now forms the residential, industrial,
business and academic district of Kobe.
After the cruise, we walk to central Kobe and savour the
Japanese-Chinese cuisine at Chinatown.
Post-lunch, we first visit the Kobe
City Museum,
which stores over 10,000 old Japanese maps. The curators will show you some
of the typical maps and pictorial scrolls, and interpret them as well. We
move on to Sawano-tsuru Sake
Brewery in Nada district, where we tour the Sake Museum. The museum displays the
traditional process of manufacturing sake,
and you can taste several types of this Japanese specialty.
In this field trip you can experience Kobe from ancient to
modern times.
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