Kobe Harborland

Harborland was built on former railway freight yards from 1992 and is a shopping and restaurant waterfront with a Ferris wheel, facing Meriken Park across the water where the red Kobe Port Tower and the maritime museum stand. Two brick warehouses of 1890s date survive on the quay and hold restaurants. The part worth going for is at the edge of Meriken Park: after the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake, which killed over six thousand people and destroyed much of the port, a sixty-metre section of the quay wall was deliberately left exactly as the shaking had left it - lamp posts leaning, paving buckled, the wall dropped - as a memorial and an object lesson, with the rest of the port rebuilt around it. It is quiet and unlabelled in the middle of a shopping district, and it is the most substantial thing on this waterfront.

What you actually see

• The earthquake memorial - sixty metres of quay left as the 1995 shaking left it.
• Brick warehouses - 1890s buildings on the quay, in use as restaurants.
• The Port Tower - a red lattice hyperboloid across the water in Meriken Park.
• A Ferris wheel waterfront - shopping and restaurants built on old freight yards.

When to go

All year; after dark for the lit harbour. Half a day.

Honest expectations

Most of Harborland is a shopping mall. The memorial section is small and easy to walk past. The Port Tower has been closed for refurbishment at times. Weekend crowds are heavy.

Nearby

Kobe's Chinatown is east; Mount Rokko rises behind the city.