Yokohama city is currently the second largest city in Japan and is about 20-40 minutes away from most Yamanote line JR train stations. From our Super Hotel in Shinbashi it only took 22 minutes to reach JR Yokohama station. There isn’t a whole lot of things to do in Yokohama but if you are interested in museums, there is quite a few including some odd museums such as the Ampanman Museum. The major attractions that Yokohama its charm are probably the buildings around MinatoMirai Subway station most notably the Landmark tower and its connecting buildings, one of the larger ferris wheels of the world which also doubles as one of the largest clock buildings, and Cosmoworld. Our day at Yokohama was a relaxed day of eating in Chinatown shopping through the Landmark tower complexes and several hours spent at a token game centre.
To get to China town you need to jump on the MinatoMirai subway line and get off at Motomatchi-Chukagai Station and take a look at the map for the best exit. Yokohama China town is one of the largest chinatowns in Japan and is home to a huge array of Chinese Restaurants and souvenir stores. If your intending to do a lot of sightseeing you should buy a One day MinatoMirai Line subway card (take note that this card only covers a few of the subway stops in Yokohama, but it will get you to the main sightseeing points) from the ticketing machines which will set you back 450 yen. To make this useful you need to do at least 3 individual trips. We had lunch at a buffet style Chinese restaurant which cost us 1980 per person for unlimited food which we could order off the menu. The food quality was quite high and the small portion servings allowed us to eat several of our favourite Chinese dishes. There is a few different dining options in probably the hundred or so restaurants in the area including buffet style lunches to set menus that will set you back 6000 yen + per person. How much you spend will dictate the quality of your food; However for the 1980 buffet we paid for the quality was pretty decent. Other things to do in Chinatown are to take photos of the 6 gates to the entrances of Chinatown, get your name painted using colourful Kanji done by an expert, get a portrait of yourself via a comic artists, shop in one of the many traditional chinese goods stores and finally get yourself some roasted chestnuts. Be careful of the chestnut vendors however as their touting can get quite annoying and they might not stop until you buy their chestnuts. In order to avoid these vendors it is best not to accept their samples in the first place, unless you actually have intention to buy some chestnuts. After we ate lunch and had a quick look around for our favourite Chinese sweets most notably pineapple cake and egg tarts we headed over to a token game center to kill time as we had a lot of free time available.
More or less these token game centers you pay money for tokens 2000 yen for 400 (for example) and you insert them into different types of games and try to get them into specific points (like pachinko) in order to spin the slot to win more tokens. We have similar games back home except the tokens you can use for other games but these have absolutely no value once you purchase them but for fun. There are quite a lot of games and your can literally spend hours playing them all just for fun. Its an expensive hobby but a good time waster. At about 5:00 pm or so we to MinatoMirai station which is the best station to visit the Landmark tower and its surrounding buildings, which include several shopping complexes spanning several buildings across several floors. This is actually quite a good complex to do some shopping and most brands are in these buildings with the more expensive brands being concentrated in Landmark Tower itself. There is also a Pokemon center for Pokemon lovers and a Jump store for Naruto/One Piece lovers. After this we opted to head back to pick up our bags so we could head home to Osaka. There are other activities to do in this city but none are as grand or as famous as Tokyo’s main areas. If your going to visit make sure you check out Chinatown and the Landmark tower, otherwise save your money for Tokyo! As I have already written a blog on heading back to Osaka via nightbus I will not be writing another one and thus this ends part 1 of my August 2010 Trip. Part 2 will encompass: Okayama, Kurashiki, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Iwakuni and Onimichi which are several cities of Western Honshu. Stay tuned for that!
Travelling with Sig! 