I never intended to come here, but Japanese guides know best!

★ Join me as I adventure through a part of Kobe I have never explored, and frankly didn’t think I wanted to! Following a Japanese travel guide, I found hidden gems I would never have explored otherwise… It’s time to share the wisdom of the local recommendations kept from international tourists by a language barrier ★

This is Travel like a Local: a travel series based on followed the recommendations and itineraries written in Japanese guide books and magazines.

I want to answer 3 questions:
1. Are the guides accurate?
2. Are the recommendations different than what is available in English to international travellers?
3. What are the pros and cons of following these guides for locals?

In this video, I go to Kitano Ijinkan and visit Uroko house, Holland house, Weathervane house, Moegi house, Kitanozaka, Ikuta Jinja (shrine) and Tor Road.

My maps link for this route: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/2/edit?mid=1_ymnDqKEG6kGxXzL97cNOfARVOOQLoY&usp=sharing

1. Uroko House / うろこの家・展望ギャラリー
🏷️ 1050
https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZgwHxDYyMBtHT2VEA

2. Holland House / 香りの家オランダ館
🏷️ 700 (+3100 for fragrance experience)
https://maps.app.goo.gl/RrYYYq4UzwDcBijZ8

3. Weathervane House / 風見鶏の館
🏷️ 500 (currently closed until 2025)
https://maps.app.goo.gl/4muhSs4z1qNu4okG6

4. Moegi House / 萌黄の館
🏷️ 400
https://maps.app.goo.gl/iNX2tCfzQneo85FX9

5. Kitanozaka / 北野坂
https://maps.app.goo.gl/eK8ufpQhBgzSmzxZA

6. Ikuta Jinja / 生田神社
https://maps.app.goo.gl/SJbxJUSrbEv6HuDA6

7. Tor Road /トアロード
https://maps.app.goo.gl/y6RZkKTCvZfsLXBz5

Bonus. Bistrot Cafe de Paris / ビストロ カフェ・ド・パリ
https://maps.app.goo.gl/m2pQrPRJwE3fPf3q7

Chapters:
00:00 – Preview
00:27 – Introduction
01:59 – Walking to Uroko House
02:29 – Uroko House
08:18 – Observation gallery
09:09 – Walk to Holland House
09:20 – Holland House
11:49 – Walk to Weathervane House
12:20 – Weathervane House
12:32 – Walk to Moegi House
12:39 – Moegi House
14:13 – Kitanozaka 1
15:09 – Bistrot de Cafe Paris
16:26 – Kitanozaka 2
17:17 – Ikuta Jinja
18:38 – Tor Road
20:19 – Was the guide accurate?
21:39 – Highlights
22:46 – Downsides
23:39 – Japanese guides vs English guides
24:19 – What did you think?

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[Applause] [Applause] [Applause] Welcome to travel like a local travel series diving into the fascinating world of Japanese travel guides in Japan there are so many magazines and books aimed at helping Japanese people explore and I’ve long been fascinated by the specific genres covered such as city-based walking guides Health focused city-based

Walking guides walking in the mountain walking routes from train stations traveling alone historical Roots roots for temple stamps including a cat themed version bread driving rots for delicious ious food cafes including subcategories like Forest cafes the list goes on I grabbed some of the most interesting looking Japanese travel guides all aimed

At domestic tourists we’re going to dive right into them and see what hidden gems we can uncover I’m curious to see the kind of places aimed at Japanese Travelers and if that differs from those recommended for international Travelers so whether you’re living in Japan a regular visitor or researching for your

First trip make sure to to hit that subscribe button to join me on New Adventures each video for this first video I’ve decided to stick with my home City coob and way better to start than route number one Kitano and tour Road here are some metrics for the route

Including time taken kilometers steps and how much money you’ll need and here are the stops we’re going to use today you can see there are seven steps and then there is a nice big clear map showing you the route you’re going to walk so let’s go let’s get started we are

Leaving from the South exit of Shing KOB station and here we are walking towards Kitano eating Camp to our first Stop here’s where it all becomes a little bit uphill you can’t tell by the video but it’s really quite steep but here we are we have arrived at uro house I remember at the ticket office they were trying to promote these passes that get you into several buildings but there’s several groups so

You got to be careful which one you buy and which houses you actually want to go to how much time you want to spend and my husband here was just explaining to me that uro means like fish scales in Japanese so that’s why the house is called uro house because of

These slate tiles on the exterior everyone seemed to rub this Hog’s nose so I did too it says London London and then we went over to the FR box I don’t know how it was no me neither to be honest hello Mushy Mushy so as you go up there are two buildings

There’s the house and the gallery you can go in any order but we decided we wanted to look at the house First as you can see it’s very Western styled and made up as it would have [Applause] Been Now for me this was the best part of uroko house was all of these pictures on the walls that really helped to put the house in context as a foreigner when I was was young my great-grandparents lived in a big old farmhouse that wasn’t too dissimilar from this kind of

Building and Furnishings so the pictures really helped me to put it back into context of Japan as well as of course this suit of Samurai Armor I thought this house was also really wellmaintained everything looked really good Apparently this man on the left was the first person to bring golf into thean here we go let’s see the Stamps this one says Ur House the gallery there was some interesting abstract art pieces on the top Floor and this s and downstairs of course there was the gift Shop there’s a lot of Tea you can buy like on the C this is quite new you can buy Disney things for some reason it’s more they Co that’s a cute andise well I like the flowers oh soap air and a soap dish or mini Tray Like doll’s house and you can get all the Food and some Cats this is next we headed over into the gallery building put Museum strangely on the ground floor it’s full of cat things not a cat person so don’t understand it let’s take a picture together the second floor had these pieces of art some I think were quite

Famous there was one by hry matis that I remember and then finally on the top floor there is this lovely observation area you get a good view out over Kobe and of course A good view to the building work they’re doing nearby So off we go we’re going to walk over to our second stop which is Holland House now the theming here is fragrance it’s like a fragrance house so we bought our tickets we’re heading Inside immediately you can see that a lot of space was taken up with photos showcasing all the celebrities that have visited okay No yes green K and of course this quiz you start with your blood type and then you figure out what kind of fragrance person are but I don’t know my blood type so I couldn’t play but my opinion about the Holland House is that it’s all just a bit falling

Apart a as you can see it doesn’t seem to be very well maintained the paint is chipping and flaking and honestly I don’t know if this was a necessary stop unless you want to do the fragrance Workshop I think they make you your own perfume or bottle of fragrance but that

Was an extra fee that we didn’t really want to pay and do so we skipped on that one which made the whole house just a little bit less interesting Yeah You can kind of see outside as a prime example of what I mean about the maintenance it’s just a bit shoddy so now we’re going to walk over to the next stop which is weather Bay house I think in English it’s the big red brick building that’s kind of iconic

Ofit it has the Weather Vein on top hence Weather Vein House but unfortunately it is closed they’re doing some Renovations at the moment I believe but then it’s only a short walk over to our next stop Moi house the color is just beautiful on the Outside And this seemed to be quite a similar quality to the first place to uroko house everything was much more maintained but that said there were less Furniture here is a picture of the Damage Done by the 1995 earth quake the chimney fell through the roof N this balcony area was delightful so light and lovely nice to look out of and here is said red brick chimney that fell in the earthquake and now let’s move on to the next stop I don’t know if it’s a stop the next thing on the list is Kitano

Zaka zaka meaning slope or Hill so it’s basically the street back down to Sania until you get to the next stop which is iuta Ginger and on the way there is a very iconic Landmark here on the right Starbucks if you are in the area not interested in paying entrance fees but still want to go into one of these old western style building Starbucks is a pretty good option for that you just

Have to buy a coffee of course and now we’re on our way for lunch we have decided to use one of the cafes recommended in the travel guide as to stay true to what is being recommended and this one is called be Cafe De and immediately when we went inside

The whole interior was booked out for a really big group that arrived later so the only option for sitting was the Terrace we were really lucky that the weather was not so bad it’s getting a bit warmer so we decided we’d stick with it and sit on the Terrace and we got the

Lunch set which had this Kabota soup salad bread and the main dish of your Choice it was okay here’s my steak and my husband’s beef the main dishes themselves like the the Meat part was pretty good but we both didn’t really like the rice was very dry and personally I didn’t understand why a French themed Cafe wouldn’t just stick with potatoes but maybe that’s just my own

Bias cuz I want to eat potatoes we also got coffee included at the end and the service was just okay and then for the coffee instead of real milk it was like the vegetable oil based fat mixture I wasn’t very impressed with that I didn’t feel like that was very

Fitting anyway let’s walk on to our next and final proper stop which is iuta ginger We went to auta Ginger for midnight on New Year’s Eve that was actually the first ever video on this channel please check it out if you haven’t already but today is looking very different much quieter no festivities just normal Shrine day Same There’s a small nice pond at the back of the shrine I hadn’t realized it was there since the only time we’ve gone at night and a bit further up is actually another small wooded Garden area which was quite nice to have a look At we’re starting the final stretch of our day out today the last stop is here tour Road it’s just a Long Street that takes you back to motomachi station there’s a lot of cute shops there’s a cute tea house there’s some interesting hotels buildings there’s an antique shop further down lots of

Interesting little places and I think it’s just an interesting way to get back to where you need to be I’m not sure this is a highlight of the day but since a whole itinerary is being provided they are pointing out that this is a nice

Area to look in some shops so I can understand why it’s on there as an actual stock but I do think that’s one of the differences between what would be recommended to foreigners and what I recommended in these very specific items everything I’ve read on English websites before foreigners they mention

A lot of the same places but they’re mentioning the places individually it’s kind of rare to get offered an indepth itinery like this there are like day itineries in which case the morning would be K walk around have a look and then the afternoon would be somewhere

Else because it’s usually just a one day Itinery but honestly you’ll see at the end here by the metrics but I’m not sure I’d have it in me to do a whole another round in the afternoon or a similar amount of walking and spending and things like That that brings us to mamachi station and to the end of this Route let’s review together let’s start with numbers here is what the guide told us this route would be was it accurate starting with time we set off from shinco station at 10:15 and have ended at 150 so that’s 3 hours and 35 minutes this is really close but we did stop for

Lunch for 50 minutes which was not included in the guide’s time estimation so I think the guide’s estimation is too long next steps I’ve done 9,679 steps today being generous let’s say 1,500 were before starting that makes the route 8,179 steps then dis I’ve walked 7 km today so again being

Generous let’s make that 6 km so those are both double the guides estimate I think the guide was only accounting for the walks between the stops but the walking around the houses has also added up finally fees for a fair comparison I checked the entrance fees for the three

Houses included and it was 50 Yen wrong so I’d guess fees have changed somewhere since the guide was published but in reality for us including lunch and taking out weather vean house we spent 4,790 Yen per person I had a really nice time following this itinery firstly it took

Me to a part of coob I have not explored and almost even discounted as being uninteresting Kitano dinkan is largely popular with Asian tourists who see this type of architecture less often than tourists from Europe I’m from the UK so I thought it would be less interest

Interesting but as I mentioned earlier I really enjoyed looking at the photos in uro house and placing this kind of familiar setting back into the unfamiliar context of Japan secondly I loved having a set itinery and not needing to spend time researching or planning how to spend the day that said

There were many Cafe and Restaurant recommendations for the area on the pages following the route itself I’ve highlighted these on the My Maps link included in the description I like the way that this was left a little more open and up to you to incorporate when and where suited you finally I really

Like the inclusion and highlighting of certain historical or interesting streets that linked up some of the biggest stops that could have been really easy to just pass through without much thought then for downsides this guide took no notice of the discount package tickets there are many houses

And buildings in Kitano dinkan that you can pay to enter and there are three main groups of buildings that sell discount ticket entries into several of the houses the four places recommended on the route are split across all three groups so you really can’t take advantage of those at all I also

Wouldn’t have included Holland House as someone worth entering unless you want to take part in the fragrance score but this experience costs an extra 3,100 Yen for a small 10ml bottle of fragrance made for you I mean it looked fun but we were on a bit of a budget and didn’t

Really want to spend the extra money and finally the numbers and the metrics in the magazine were just way off so if time or budget are an issue it definitely requires double checking that before setting off while thinking about the differences between these Japanese guides and the English recommendations

Available online it really stuck out to me that the organization into a timeline like a key itinery was the big difference English Guides Online tend to talk about these sites individually and leave all the scheduling and choice of where to go up to you and then when

There is an itinery it’s often aimed at exploring the whole city in a short time International tourists are usually traveling to many places in one trip so I think the time difference is really key as someone living in Japan I’m lucky enough to be able to enjoy the slower

Pace and More indepth Travel that is suggested in these guides but that’s just what I think please let me know what you thought in the comments and if there’s any way you would like to see me go in the future thank you so much for watching if you enjoyed this video

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