Yokohama – Day 6

After a night of wanting to throw up due to the room spinning, I woke up with a stinking hangover.  Jim-bob was also suffering and definitely in a state far worse than me.  Keiko didn’t hear us return, thankfully, but did later comment that Jimothy’s snoring did wake her up and despite being pushed and prodded, he was dead to the world hehe.

The day was gorgeous by British standards (and probably by Japanese standards, given the days before), with blue skies and a temperature of around 25 degrees.  Since we were both feeling fragile, we took it easy that morning and went for a casual stroll around the neighbourhood. Being the geeks that we are, an arcade was our first port of call.  It was incredibly priced, with Initial D costing only 100 Yen (50p or so).  It was also incredibly dead so I continued to load the machine up with the monies until the ushii came home.  Jimbo played some Virtua Cop 3 and something else that I don’t recall.  We found another arcade where Jimothy showed me his music game skills and had a few goes on Drum Mania, Guitar Freaks, and Beat Mania; don’t ask me to tell you the versions, I have absolutely no idea.  We made our way to the station where somehow, we ended up talking about women’s underwear for some reason or another.

To Yokohama we ventured, where we had arranged to meet Chikara.  Sawa and Keiko were after new laptops and we were going to have a goosey-gander in Yodobashi Camera for some netbooks from Asus, Acer, and so on.  We waited around by the street level entrance, but the usually punctual Chikara was late (shock horror!), so we took some photos to pass the time.  I’m actually very impressed with Jim-bob’s composition work, and a few of his shots on my SLR have impressed me.  Chikara eventually turned up and we made our way to Sogo for lunch.  Sogo is one of my favourite department stores, with my first introduction to the chain in Hong Kong.  There was a store in London many, many years ago, but that was taken over by Virgin, and it’s now an empty shop lot.  Once again, the department stores in Japan are all very plush and full-fat affairs, with the restaurant section on the top floor resembling an outdoor water and rock garden of sorts – all very intricate.  Chikara took us to his favourite ramen restaurant where we all had the regular ramen, with Jimbo and Chikara opting for their salt soup base (a house special) and shoyu soup base for myself.  The ramen was superb and not badly priced at 3200 Yen (£16) for the 3 of us.

After lunch, we had a look at the rooftop where there was some astroturf for football and a view of Yokohama Bay, which wasn’t all that impressive.  We returned to Yodobashi Camera for a look around and it really is heaven on Earth for geeks.  Looking at the mobile phones, I was thoroughly impressed by the variety available.  I even saw the phone which inspired the look of Tony Stark’s phone in Iron Man (the flippy-swivelly one).  According to Jimbo, the reason why there are so many phones on the Japanese market is due to everybody wanting largely the same features, but in a certain colour or a certain style; on Softbank for example, the new Panna (?) was available in at least 10 different colours.  The floor of camera equipment was also a sight to behold, squeezing the Birmingham branch of Jessops (second largest in the UK) into what is an electronics department store, with far more on the shelves at that.  During our perusal of the store, the highly addictive Yodobashi Camera theme (reworked Battle Hymn of the Republic) was playing on a loop:

After our geek-out, we decided to do some touring of Yokohama and headed over to the Sea Bass (Sea Bus) station.  The Sea Bass is simply a boat which takes you across Yokohama Bay and affords some great photo opportunities of the Bay Bridge and Landmark Tower.  Out came the camera no less…

We were all diseased or injured, with Chikara suffering from a sore knee, Jimbo with a sore throat, and me with a sore ankle.  All day long, we were chanting “my foot”, “my throat”, “my knee”, trying to get sympathy from the public and each other.  I miss the banter…

We arrived on the other side of the bay which looked fantastically shiney and new.  Got some great views of the ferris wheel, made famous for me by the wonderful anime, “Honey & Clover”.  Leo would have loved it and it made me feel some nostalgia for the Summer of 2005.

The area was amass with shopping complexes, restaurants, conference halls, and sculptures.  In many ways, this particular part of Yokohama reminded me of the redeveloped parts of Manchester or the London Docklands as Jimothy’s already pointed out on his blog.  It was lovely to just walk around, taking in the sights and sounds.  Chikara mentioned that at Christmas, there is a massive tree indoors which is supposed to look absolutely stunning.  They don’t do things by halves in Japan it seems.  There was also a weird and whacky piece of installation art of a lad about to do the high dive…

I’ve already talked about having to pay to go to the top of Tokyo Tower in Roppongi and it’s no different for Landmark Tower, though at 1000 Yen a pop, we decided to give it a miss.  I kind of regret that decision now because it was such a nice day and it would have been a nice opportunity to take some photos which weren’t cloudy and overcast.  Apparently, there was also a Pokémon store inside the shopping complex for the tower; I know some folks who would have creamed themselves to have been able to set foot inside.

The 3 of us decided to make our way towards the Nippon Maru, which had opted to close in the next few minutes.  Due to meet Keiko after she finished work for the day, we headed in that direction, passing a baseball stadium (I forget the team) and entering a swanky looking part of town, with plenty of fancy western style cafes and restaurants.  Having some time to kill, we popped into a cafe for some drinks and a smoke for me.  The smoking and non-smoking sections of this cafe were laughable, with nothing more than some simple wood beams which were not even connected, separating the two areas.  We had a chat about possible places that Jimothy and Keiko could move to, making both of their commutes to work easier.  Since I’d been on my feet for most of the holiday, I didn’t really get much time to buy souvenirs for people back in Blighty.  For the folks back at work, I decided to get some Hi-Chus since they went down a treat the last time I brought some in.  We went to an Am Pm combini and I must have grabbed about 12 packs of strawberry and apple flavour which came to about 1200 Yen, which is still more reasonable than the £1.50 a pack in Covent Garden’s Cyber Candy (though the Japan Centre sells them for 78p each!).  We soon met up with Keiko and made our way to a station, somewhere in Yokohama…

We popped into an import food store on the way to meet Sawa, where they sold a decent variety of food stuffs from Europe and the US.  Prices were steep with a jar of Sharwoods curry sauce costing about 700 Yen (£3.50 or so).  They also had stuff which you could pick up in Lidl for less than a quid, but if you’re desperate…  There was a film crew shooting a scene for either a movie or drama of some sort, with 2 characters dressed up in Santa suits and surrounded in Christmas decorations.  How they were going to break the illusion of people walking past in t-shirts and shorts when it’s supposed to be Winter is anybody’s guess.  We eventually found Sawa who very kindly got me some pastries for my birthday (and delicious they were too).  The walk to the yakitori place took maybe 10 minutes, but involved walking inside a long and noisy tunnel, and nearly being mowed down by cyclists.

Chikara told us that he typically visits this particular yakitori place once or twice a year.  It looked fairly traditional and we were able to have an entire room to ourselves, so you can bet we were as noisy and silly as possible.  The food selection we chose from the menu was ecclectic, with such juicy morsels like yaki cheese (grilled/fried cheese), chicken heart, and yaki onigiri (grilled rice balls).  The most memorable dish for me though is without a doubt the chicken sashimi.  For those not in the know, it was essentially raw chicken.  Now having grown up in salmonela and E Coli infested Britain, this immediately raised alarm bells, but then you have to remember that Japan’s livestock are typically not raised or treated like they are in the West.  Everybody reassured me that it was perfectly safe to consume, though Jimbo commented that I might have a minor dicky tummy the next day (I didn’t in the end).  So, “when in Rome, do as the Romans do”, as the saying goes since I’d probably not get the opportunity again.  And how did it taste?  Oddly, I quite enjoyed it though I probably couldn’t have had more than a few mouth-fulls.  Rather strangely, it all tasted very familiar which raises the question of where have I had raw chicken before in the UK??  I had a wonderful time, and it was nice to just relax and chat with everybody, which is now a real luxury for me.  The bill came to about 20, 000 Yen for the 5 of us, which ain’t too bad at all really.

Sadly, it was time to leave but that did give me a chance to get a shot of the funky tunnel and Jimothy…  We all made our way towards the station and after a few stops, we soon had to say goodbye to Chikara and Sawa.  I do miss them, Chikara especially for his sense of humour.  He really is one of the funniest guys I’ve met in such a long time thanks to his rather unique sense of humour.  Hopefully I’ll be able to see them again in the Spring if I can get myself out to Japan again.  It was soon time to bid Jim-bob and Keiko goodnight also.  I would thankfully be seeing them again the following night for dinner at an izakaya, after the original plan of dinner and drinks at the New York Bar and Grill in the <insert version> Hyatt fell flat (next time!).

This day and the previous one were my favourites from my trip.  Yokohama is a lovely place and has real character where ever you go.  I will most definitely have to give the place a more thorough look on my next visit.

Photos of the day can be found here, here, and here.

Tomorrow would be my last day in Japan, as well as being my birthday.  I planned to visit Asakusa, and made repeat visits to Akihabara, Shibuya, Harajuku, Omottesando, and Shinjuku, as well as dining with Jimothy and Keiko which I’d decided to name “the last supper”.