Yokohama 横浜

Snow in Tokyo yesterday. Bad weather, windy, very cold and slippery. So why not go to Yokohama? It's more southern, about as south as the distance between Amsterdam and Utrecht, so tropical weather awaits us. Not so much.

So I went to Yoketown with two of my classmates. Yokohama has a lot to be proud of, for example it has the highest tower in japan named appropriately, the landmark tower. It was raining and the top of the tower was in the clouds: excellent circumstances to go up to the 68th floor observation deck, as you get a whopping 300 yen discount (2 euro's) when it's raining. Also we got a free drink, and being Dutch, that really convinced us to spend 700 yen on this adventure.

Spending a few seconds to get to the top (the building has the world's second fastest elevator, surpassed only by the recently built tower in Taiwan), the view was, well, interesting. It was a fun game to take a picture exactly in the seconds that a hole between the clouds would come up. Anyway we could still see part of the view and it was a cool experience, and supposedly the night-time view is great, so i'll definately come back.

After that we spent some time in a widely built mall and in a picturesque shopping street that reminded us of some french provence town. You can really feel you're outside of Tokyo, as it's less crowded and somehow built more spacious.

Of course, myself being 'chinese' according to practically everyone, I went to the largest chinatown in Japan which is based in this city. When at breakfast I told my classmates I was going to check out chinatown in Yokohama, someone said, 'ah, going back to your roots, eh'. And I must admit it was nice to be amongst the chinese again. The agressive hawking of 'hello, postcard, hello map' was something i missed in Japan :).
Also got my mobile engraved, which I bought a few days ago. We went to the stall and it cost 2000 yen to let him engrave a phoenix or dragon by hand. He spoke to us in english. After I asked him if he spoke chinese, my unpleasant chinese bargaining skills came bubbling up and I kept complaining and shouting in mandarin until the poor old man was left only 500 yen. But he liked us so I think my karma is still ok.


The 700-yen view.


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One of yokohama's shopping streets. I have no idea why I'm pointing.


chinatown. complete with kitchy laterns, which I endorse.




name of art piece: boku to keitai (me and my mobile)