Found this still in my "drafts" section from sometime last month. Just a few finishing touches and here is the report from our (Amanda and yours truly) trip to Kobe/Kyoto over New Year's!

Had a really good time in Kobe. The family we stayed with, the Nakagawas, are
all really nice. They treated us so well and we were never without food! It
was fun to experience an honest-to-goodness authentic Japanese New Year.

We ended up taking a one-day trip to Kyoto the first full day in Kansai. We
only saw a few things but I figured that'd be the case since you really need
more than one day to see everything. We did see the Golden temple, though, and
we got there late in the afternoon when the sun really lit the temple up. I got
some really good pictures. Really, everything turned out perfectly for a day
trip.

Then on Sabbath we went to the Kobe church in the morning and then did some
sightseeing around Kobe. There are some "foreigner's houses" that are
the famous landmarks in the city and they were pretty interesting. They had an
English house, a Dutch and Danish one, and a few others. The American house was
closed. We also got some famous Kobe desserts and they were amazing.

Then on New Year's day we had a special breakfast (fish, miso soup, mochi,
pickled vegetables) and everything was really good. The whole family took us
out to the airport and said good-bye. We really enjoyed our time with them and
they seemed to enjoy having us there, too. The parents don't speak much English
although the mother likes to try (and likes to talk in general.)

From there we went to Tokyo--were planning on only staying one night. There's this pretty nice hotel in the Asakusa district that Amanda found when her parents visited wayyyyy back in 2004. We've recommended this hotel whenever people have come from overseas (the Hotel Sunroute Asakusa--yeah, it's a pansy Western-style hotel, you wanna make something of it??) We stayed for an extra night in Tokyo because we were both too tired to go out shopping the first afternoon there. Got mostly everything that we needed even though a couple of our favorite shopping spots were closed. So it was a really fun time. We were both pretty tired out by the end, though.

So my recommendation is to go to Kyoto if you have the chance, but it's much better if you have a charming Japanese family to stay with. Apparently we made a good impression on the family, because they sent us a totally SWANK Japanese soup set. Yes, Mom, I sent a thank-you note home with Kaori.