Rokko Mountain

We celebrated my birthday recently, and as usual we went out to eat together. A birthday is a good excuse to try something new, so we tend to pick some place we wouldn't normally go to. Beyond our normal budget, a kind of restaurant or food we wouldn't usually have, or perhaps at an interesting location.

Mikage station on the Hanshin line. From here you take the bus to the Rokko ropeway base station where you go up the mountain. At the top you can take another bus or you walk to the hotel. Walking is more pleasant, but bring a change of clothes in the summer.

The dinner was late this year; I was still at OCNC in Okinawa on my birthday, and we delayed it another couple of weeks to let me catch up with things once I came back. But a few weeks ago we finally went to Rokko mountain in Kobe, and to the barbecue at Rokko Mountain Hotel.

There's no real town along the top ridge, just houses spread out along the road, but it does have this store with daily foods and a large selection of wines, beers and spirits, including a local Rokko beer. There's many summer homes and corporate retreats on the mountain, so I can see the demand.

We last went there for O-bon two years ago. We had the buffet, which was tasty, but of course still buffet-type food. At the time we decided to return some day and have the course menu instead. Expensive, but with higher-quality food. My birthday was a perfect opportunity.

The lobster, with scallops and squid gently frying in the background. Overdoing the depth of field thing here, I think.

The course menu was very good indeed. The appetizer was a sampling plate with sashimi, marinated seafood and vegetables. The small lobster cooked in its own shell was succulent, and the main course meats were tender and flavourful, and included various cuts of lamb, chicken, pork and beef as well as sausages and lots of vegetables. My favourite (if not Ritsukos) was the lambchops, but the beefsteak and the thick bacon slices were excellent too. It finished with dessert and coffe. Well worth trying as an experience. The weather was rather hazy, unfortunately, so the view wasn't very photogenic.

Hydrangea grow wild all over the mountain. They're not native to Japan so they're probably escapees from some garden long ago. At this time the whole mountain top is lit up in light blue flowers.

Rokko Mountain

Panoramic view from Rokko mountain. Click on the image for a somewhat larger version. You can also view the really large size, though that one is big.

In the center foreground is Kobe's Sannomiya area, with Port Island (site of Ikea and the airport) to the right. In the background left is Osaka city (I think you technically can see our house from here), becoming Sakai city toward the right along the coast. Way in the back on the right, a narrow strip of lights in the sea is Kansai Airport (in the huge version above you can see the bridge connecting it to the mainland).

Our only excursion during this year's Obon holiday was a day trip to Rokko mountain in Kobe. Eastern Kobe lies along a fairly narrow strip of land between the sea to the south and the steep slope of the Rokko mountain to the north. It's pretty high - more than 700 meters - so the climate is notably cooler and drier, and the views can be spectacular.

The cable car ground station.

You can go up by bus on steep, winding roads, or you can take the cable car at the foot of the mountain. You get there by bus from any of the three railway stations (JR, Hanshin and Hankyuu lines) passing by below. The cable car itself is fun, with big open windows and a glass roof that gives you a good view as you get pulled up some very steep gullies and through a number of tunnels on the way to the top.

The mountain top is littered with corporate retreats and summer homes, used for conferences and parties. This one seems maintained but clearly unused (that's why I could get right up to it); the company could be bankrupt, or they may simply have sold the place and the new owners have yet to take it in hand.

There's apparently a lot of outdoorsy things you can do up on the mountain, with a sports center, parks, golf course, hiking trails, farms to visit and so on. For those, like us, with a less physical approach to leisure time the Rokkosan hotel is an alternative.

Beer with a view

The hotel is a charming, fairly old but well-kept building with plenty of atmosphere (you could shoot a Stephen King movie here I think, or a murder mystery) and some spectacular views of Kobe and the Seto sea. It seems to do a fair amount of weddings so there's gardens and a wedding chapel right on the hotel grounds. If you're not in a marrying frame of mind you can skip the chapel and go up up on the roof to see the landscape below, or take a break in the bar on the top floor with the same spectacular view.

The hotel runs two restaurants in separate buildings right on the edge of the precipice, one an indoor fondue and general Western food, and the other one a mostly outdoor barbecue place with three levels of balconies overlooking the mountainside. We ate at the all-you-can-eat barbecue place ("Djingis Khan" is the Japanese name for it) where you pick up meat, fish and vegetables from the buffet and grill on the hot plate on your table while watching the sun set over the sea.

 

Ritsuko and the barbecue place. Surprisingly good food, and with a good atmosphere.

This kind of place is family oriented of course, and usually aims for affordability over quality. Knowing that, we were very positively surprised. Lots of good quality meats, sausages, fish and shellfish to choose from, and the vegetables, too, were fresh and plentiful. I must have eaten a dozen scallops alone, to say nothing about all the lamb, squid and buttered corn I managed to stuff myself with. For dessert you could pick among an assortment of puddings and cakes, and some really good stick ice cream in three flavours. 90 minutes was either not nearly long enough, or too long already, depending on whether you care more about the food or the resulting waistline.

All pictures and more are in the Rokko Mountain set on Flickr.

Detailed image of Sannomiya. It really hits you how much of Kobe is just a narrow strip of land between the mountain and the sea. Makes the Kobe subway system layout, with two lines running in parallel, seem much more sensible too.

The view really is beautiful.