MSC BELLISSIMA: Tokyo, Japan - Tokyo, Japan - 04.05.2027. - 13 days

      Kobe is the capital city of Hyogo Prefecture and a prominent port city in Japan with a population of about 1.4 million. The city is located in the Kansai region of Japan and is part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area. Kobe is classified as one of Japan's seventeen designated cities.
Originally known by the name Owada Anchorage, earliest written records regarding the region come from the Nihon Shoki, which describes the founding of the Ikuta Shrine by Empress Jingu in 201 A.D. For most of its history the area was never a single political entity, even during the Tokugawa Period, when the port was controlled directly by the Tokugawa Shogunate. Kobe did not exist in its current form until its founding in 1889. Its name comes from "kanbe", an archaic title for supporters of the city's Ikuta Shrine.
Kobe was one of the first cities to open for trade with the West following the end of the policy of seclusion and has since been known as a cosmopolitan port city. While the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake diminished much of Kobe's prominence as a port city, it remains Japan's fourth busiest container port. Companies headquartered in Kobe include ASICS, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, and Kobe Steel, as well as over 100 international corporations with Asia or Japan headquarters in the city such as Procter & Gamble and Nestlé. As of September 2007, Kobe has a population of 1,530,295 making up 658,876 households. The population density is approximately 2,768 persons per square kilometer. About thirteen percent of the population is between the ages of 0 and 14, sixty-seven percent are between 15 and 64, and twenty percent are over the age of 65.Approximately 44,000 registered foreign nationals live in Kobe.
The four most common nationalities are Korean (22,237), Chinese (12,516), Vietnamese (1,301), and American (1,280).Kobe is both an important port and manufacturing center within the Hanshin Industrial Region. Kobe is the busiest container port in the region, surpassing even Osaka, and the fourth busiest in Japan.As of 2004, the city's total real GDP was ¥6.3 trillion, which amounts to thirty-four percent of the GDP for Hyogo Prefecture and approximately eight percent for the whole Kansai region. Per capita income for the year was approximately ¥2.7 million. Broken down by sector, about one percent of those employed work in the primary sector (agriculture, fishing and mining), twenty-one percent work in the secondary sector (manufacturing and industry), and seventy-eight percent work in the service sector.The value of manufactured goods produced and exported from Kobe for 2004 was ¥2.5 trillion. The four largest sectors in terms of value of goods produced are small appliances, food products, transportation equipment, and communication equipment making up over fifty percent of Kobe's manufactured goods.
In terms of numbers of employees, food products, small appliances, and transportation equipment make up the three largest sectors.Kobe is famous for its Kobe beef and Arima Onsen (hot springs), while notable buildings include the Ikuta Shrine as well as the Kobe Port Tower. It is well known for the night view of the city, from the mountains (like Mount Rokko, Mount Maya and so on) as well as the coast. Kobe is also known for having a somewhat exotic atmosphere by Japanese standards, which is mainly a result of its history as a port city.The city is also widely associated with cosmopolitanism and fashion, encapsulated in the Japanese phrase, "If you can't go to Paris, go to Kobe."
The biannual fashion event Kobe Collection is held in Kobe. The jazz festival "Kobe Jazz Street" has been held every October at jazz clubs and hotels since 1981.Kobe is the site of Japan's first golf course, Kobe Golf Club, established by Arthur Hasketh Groom in 1903, and Japan's first mosque, Kobe Mosque, built in 1935. The city also hosts the Kobe Regatta & Athletic Club, founded in 1870 by Alexander Cameron Sim, a prominent foreign cemetery, and a number of Western-style residences from the 19th century.Most of the 1957 romantic drama Sayonara takes place in Kobe.
Kobe is also the setting of the Studio Ghibli film Grave of the Fireflies.

      Kobe is the capital city of Hyogo Prefecture and a prominent port city in Japan with a population of about 1.4 million. The city is located in the Kansai region of Japan and is part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area. Kobe is classified as one of Japan's seventeen designated cities.
Originally known by the name Owada Anchorage, earliest written records regarding the region come from the Nihon Shoki, which describes the founding of the Ikuta Shrine by Empress Jingu in 201 A.D. For most of its history the area was never a single political entity, even during the Tokugawa Period, when the port was controlled directly by the Tokugawa Shogunate. Kobe did not exist in its current form until its founding in 1889. Its name comes from "kanbe", an archaic title for supporters of the city's Ikuta Shrine.
Kobe was one of the first cities to open for trade with the West following the end of the policy of seclusion and has since been known as a cosmopolitan port city. While the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake diminished much of Kobe's prominence as a port city, it remains Japan's fourth busiest container port. Companies headquartered in Kobe include ASICS, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, and Kobe Steel, as well as over 100 international corporations with Asia or Japan headquarters in the city such as Procter & Gamble and Nestlé. As of September 2007, Kobe has a population of 1,530,295 making up 658,876 households. The population density is approximately 2,768 persons per square kilometer. About thirteen percent of the population is between the ages of 0 and 14, sixty-seven percent are between 15 and 64, and twenty percent are over the age of 65.Approximately 44,000 registered foreign nationals live in Kobe.
The four most common nationalities are Korean (22,237), Chinese (12,516), Vietnamese (1,301), and American (1,280).Kobe is both an important port and manufacturing center within the Hanshin Industrial Region. Kobe is the busiest container port in the region, surpassing even Osaka, and the fourth busiest in Japan.As of 2004, the city's total real GDP was ¥6.3 trillion, which amounts to thirty-four percent of the GDP for Hyogo Prefecture and approximately eight percent for the whole Kansai region. Per capita income for the year was approximately ¥2.7 million. Broken down by sector, about one percent of those employed work in the primary sector (agriculture, fishing and mining), twenty-one percent work in the secondary sector (manufacturing and industry), and seventy-eight percent work in the service sector.The value of manufactured goods produced and exported from Kobe for 2004 was ¥2.5 trillion. The four largest sectors in terms of value of goods produced are small appliances, food products, transportation equipment, and communication equipment making up over fifty percent of Kobe's manufactured goods.
In terms of numbers of employees, food products, small appliances, and transportation equipment make up the three largest sectors.Kobe is famous for its Kobe beef and Arima Onsen (hot springs), while notable buildings include the Ikuta Shrine as well as the Kobe Port Tower. It is well known for the night view of the city, from the mountains (like Mount Rokko, Mount Maya and so on) as well as the coast. Kobe is also known for having a somewhat exotic atmosphere by Japanese standards, which is mainly a result of its history as a port city.The city is also widely associated with cosmopolitanism and fashion, encapsulated in the Japanese phrase, "If you can't go to Paris, go to Kobe."
The biannual fashion event Kobe Collection is held in Kobe. The jazz festival "Kobe Jazz Street" has been held every October at jazz clubs and hotels since 1981.Kobe is the site of Japan's first golf course, Kobe Golf Club, established by Arthur Hasketh Groom in 1903, and Japan's first mosque, Kobe Mosque, built in 1935. The city also hosts the Kobe Regatta & Athletic Club, founded in 1870 by Alexander Cameron Sim, a prominent foreign cemetery, and a number of Western-style residences from the 19th century.Most of the 1957 romantic drama Sayonara takes place in Kobe.
Kobe is also the setting of the Studio Ghibli film Grave of the Fireflies.

      Keelung (sometimes called Jilong) is a major port city in the north-eastern part of Taiwan. It borders Taipei County and forms the Taipei-Keelung metropolitan area together with the City and County of Taipei.
Nicknamed the Rainy Port for its frequent rain and its important maritime role, the city is Taiwan's second largest seaport (after Kaohsiung). Keelung is currently administered as a provincial city of Taiwan Province in the Republic of China. It has been suggested that the name Keelung was derived from the local mountain whose shape resembles a rooster cage. However, it is more probable that the name was derived from the first inhabitants of the region, like the names of many other Taiwanese cities. Indeed, the area's earliest inhabitants were the Ketagalan people, and Ke-lâng was thus probably derived from Ketagalan.
The Ketagalan were a Taiwanese aboriginal tribe, whose first contact with the west was through the Spanish. From 1642 to 1668 Keelung came under Dutch control. The Dutch East India Company attacked the Spanish and, following a brief successful siege, conquered their Fort San Salvador at Santissima Trinidad. They reduced the size of the town and renamed it Fort Noort-Holland. The Dutch possessed three other fortifications in Keelung which included a small school with a Christian preacher. When the Ming Dynasty loyalist Koxinga (Cheng Ch'en-Kung) successfully attacked the Dutch in southern Taiwan, the troops stationed at the Keelung forts fled to a trading post in Japan.
However, they returned in 1663 and reoccupied and defended their former forts. Unfortunately, trade with China through Keelung did not achieve the hoped-for success, and in 1668 the Dutch left voluntarily. In 1863 the Qing Empire reopened Keelung as an international trading port and it played an important role in the economy of the region until 1885. However, from October 1884, following the outbreak of the Sino-French War, the town was occupied by the French under the command of Admiral Amédée Courbet. Keelung grew rapidly after Taiwan's passage to the Japanese in 1895 under the Treaty of Shimonoseki. It obtained the status of town in Keelung District in 1920 and was upgraded to a city of Taipei Prefecture in 1924.