Kobe, Japan

Kobe is one of Japan's underappreciated cities. A cosmopolitan port city with an international flavor, hemmed in by Mt. Rokko, it constantly comes up number one in expatriate rankings of the best place to live in Japan. A port in what would become Kôbe was established as a concession to western powers in 1868, during the time when Japan was opening to the world. Nagasaki and Yokohama had already begun serving foreign ships nine years earlier. Today, a synagogue, a Chinatown, and European architecture mark Kôbe as a place where foreigners and foreign culture first arrived in Japan. On January 17, 1995 an earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter Scale occurred at 5:46AM JST near the city. The quake killed 6,433, made 300,000 homeless and destroyed large parts of the port facilities and other parts of the city. It was one of the most costly natural disasters in modern history. The earthquake notably destroyed the Hanshin Expressway, an elevated freeway which dramatically toppled over: within Japan, the earthquake is known as the Great Hanshin Earthquake. In the last 10 years, the city has recovered completely, but lost some of its ship traffic. Kôbe's core, and central business district, surrounds Sannomiya station, rather than Kobe Station. Sannomiya station has a tourist information office well-stocked with area maps. The Japanese characters for Sannomiya station on Japan Railways differ from the Sannomiya station on other railways .