The 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake diminished much of the port city’s prominence when it destroyed and halted much of the facilities and services there, causing approximately ten trillion yen or $102.5 billion in damage, 2.5% of Japan’s GDP at the time. Most of the losses were uninsured, as only 3% of property in the Kobe area was covered by earthquake insurance, compared to 16% in Tokyo. Kobe was one of the world’s busiest ports prior to the earthquake, but despite the repair and rebuilding, it has never regained its former status as Japan’s principal shipping port. It remains Japan’s fourth busiest container port. -wikipedia

These are the photos I took on January first in Kobe. It was a very sunny day and a great way to start the year! I went to the biggest shrine in town, where hundreds on people went to pray, celebrate and eat.

I not did know the guy was looking straight at my lens when I took the photo, but it turn out pretty cool, like the poster of a movie or something. So I decided to a bit overboard with the post processing, hope you like it!

Kobe is a port city with a very long and rich history, it very common to see strongly European inspired building like these around the city.

I took this photo a while ago, right after the first sunrise of 2010. It was on my way down the mountain… it was cold, it was early and the whole place had a really special ambiance at the this moment. Really a beautiful way to start the year!

Even though the streets were very quiet, many food stands were open. The ambiance was very relax for a place that is usually very crowded.

Happy new year! This is the first sunrise of 2010 over the city of Kobe. I had to freeze my ass for this shoot, hope you like it! I’ll fix the tree at the bottom right corner and upload a high resolution format for wallpapers later… maybe.