Yokohama

Today got off to a bit of a slow start. I had to stick around in order to take a Japanese language class online that I attend every Friday evening. Unfortunately, given the time difference, the class was held at noon. The class went well -- it is much more interesting studying a language when you are immersed in it.

Once the class was over, we made our way over to Ikebukuro station in order to catch our train to Yokohama. Yokohama is a major Asian seaport -- indeed, one of the largest. Yokohama has a population of 3 million people and is the second largest city in Japan. Despite its size though, it has a totally different feel from Tokyo. This was evident as soon as we arrived and started walking around. Yokohama is much more laid-back than Tokyo -- no crushing crowds and much less of a focus upon the latest fashions. Probably the best way to describe Yokohama is that it has a similar look and feel to Vancouver.

The maritime aspect of Yokohama is evident all over the place. There are tiles in the sidewalks that feature pictures of ships and there are several old sailing and steam ships moored in the harbour that have been converted to museums. Unfortunately, we arrived too late in the day to take in any of these. The harbour area is very beautiful though at night and there are tons of couples gathered there -- indeed, Yokohama struck me as Japan's city of love.

 

We ended up spending most of our time in the Yokohama Chinatown. It may sound strange that there is a Chinatown in a Japanese city but there is a district in Yokohama that could have been lifted right out of San Francisco or Vancouver. Cantonese and Mandarin can be heard among Japanese and the smells and sounds are all familiar from other Chinatown's that I've been to. We came across many interesting Chinese goods from the mainland -- things like rice wine that contains dead lizards and snakes (you can actually see them in the bottles)! This did not look very palatable! 

In other areas there are several very nice Buddhist shrines and a number of pagodas and stone lions.

I think that today's sightseeing involved the most walking of any of the days that we've been in Japan so far. After getting caught up walking around and checking out the sights, we realized that it was after 9:00pm and it was time to hit the train to head back to Tokyo -- unfortunately, this involves a ride that is approximately an hour long. Our exhaustion was so strong last night that we've never been so glad to get home and hit the hay!