It’s early in the morning now, and as usual, I can’t sleep. The sky is red and you know what they say about red skies in the morning and red skies at night. Tonight the moon is full, as it was last night, but tonight the moon hung low behind the tree outside my house and I had to look harder to find it. It’s just like most things, which disappear without you noticing in the hope you’ll look ever harder for them. 

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This post is about Yokohama, with which I think I might have a special love affair. This is not to say that I didn’t love all the other cities I went to, but that they mean different things to me. Tokyo is the place of childhood and dreams, mainly because I went there so many times when I was younger, though as you grow older you discover its ever-increasing adult attractions. Osaka was all about food and relaxation and just generally having fun doing everything and nothing. Kyoto was full of history, but Yokohama…

Yokohama is full of lights and romance. Yokohama is the place you bring girls to when you want to impress them. It doesn’t seem like much because it’s so near Tokyo and it’s so easy to overlook, but it retains that particular, off-centre, sort of feeling. It’s near but not too near. It has its own voice, its own attractions, its own history. Some people say Chinatown wasn’t too interesting; sometimes you just need to know where to look. Stepping into Minato Mirai is fascinating precisely because we’re at an age where we can appreciate it, still: the free theme parks, ferris wheels, lights across the sea, the red brick warehouses and the smoke curling up from beneath the windows. It seriously is the number one place to bring a girl on a date. It is so romantic you can choke. 

Day 1: Arriving from Tokyo, Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum.

So. We took the bullet train from Tokyo, and settled into Yokohama. We had a minor mishap because this time we stayed in a fairly big chain of hotels whose website reassured us that the hotel would be easy to spot. Seeing as I was rather stoned, we did see it the moment we stepped out of Shin-Yokohama station, and so we crossed the road and walked all the way there. I gave the woman our reservation number, and then… nothing. The woman told us we had the wrong hotel and said, we had to take a train down to Yokohama station, and then walk from there. So we did. It was further than we thought, though that only mattered when we were lugging our stuff all the way from the station. It overlooked a small river and it was pretty near the city (and Uniqlo and Starbucks, where we hung out alot… sigh) and was generally great. And identifiable. Haha. On the way out we saw a couple of interesting billboards including one advertising a “Coupling Party”… and we were having lots of fun trying to imagine the scenarios in which these would happen. Knowing the Japanese, however, they’d probably be dressed in bright sparkly pink going “Let’s coupling~!” or something. 

A bit further behind the horizontal bridge (I’m sitting on the vertical one) was our hotel. I must say Toyoko Inn is pretty good. It says it’s an inn, but it’s furnished pretty well and looks like a hotel room (and believe me there are noticeable differences) and was pretty new and was under $100 a night. Which worked out to under $50 for each of us. See! You can find cheap accommodation if you try!

So after we settled in we decided to head back to Shin-Yokohama (haha) and go to the Ramen Museum. Seriously this Ramen Museum is amazing. It gathered the best ramen from all over Japan, and convinced them to set up branches here. The thing about good food is that it’s usually obscure, which is why you find what is (arguably) the best bak chor mee in Bedok which is nowhere near Orchard Road; and in the same way all these famous ramen restaurants are never going to be anywhere near the big cities. Ever. Therefore without this wonderful Ramen Museum, chances are tourists would never find them. Seriously. Who’d ever think of going to Asahikawa?

As you can see, there were lots of people.

In the Ramen Museum the ramen comes in all shapes and sizes. And from everywhere in Japan. Also, it comes in the normal size, king size, and mini size.

Seeing as how I was stupid and couldn’t find the “ミニー　ラメン” on the ticketing machine outside at the first shop, we just went in and ate the normal sized one. Which turned out to be huge: it’s the one at the right, and it comes from a shop called Komurasaki (こむらさき) located in Kumamoto, which is in Kyushu, land of pork bone soup (yum). This bowl was yummy because the broth was made from both pork and chicken bones, and they grill garlic chips to put into the ramen so that it smells super good. The ramen is topped with chashu, cloud ear mushrooms, and thin bean sprouts. Seriously… it was good. It might have been beyond good. We didn’t realise how good it was till we walked out, ate ramen for the rest of the trip, and went… “Oh” in pathetic epiphany.

The second bowl (in the middle) was from Hachiya (蜂屋) which is located in Asahikawa City. This was kind of special; nowhere else serves this stuff. This shop has lasted at least a few generations, and I know this because there was a family tree in the branch at the museum and old family photos framed up. The broth was made from pork bones and fish bones, and the noodles itself looked kind of curly (think Maggi Mee, but only in form, not texture). They added grilled lard to the noodles and broth, and there was a little tin of garlic paste on the table which we were supposed to add at will. Usually the mention of lard gets me running and I don’t even eat it when I’m at home, but we’ve already established that people do a lot of stupid things while on holiday. So… I ate it, and surprisingly J liked it less than I did. He claimed the lard smell was really strong, but I, having not tasted lard and not known what it smelt like, couldn’t smell anything and happily continued to dig in. And I kind of liked it. It did sound gross when I read the description but having been reassured it tasted better than it sounded I was happy to find out it was true. And anyway you’ll never get to eat this stuff anywhere else. Might as well try at least once.

Finally, the last bowl. Note that there are actually 8 shops but we only had stomach for 3. Which I think was a lot already… The last bowl was from Ryushanghai (龍上海) which is located in Yamagata and has been there for over 50 years. Ryushanghai was the restaurant that came up with the “karamiso” topping in the 1960s when shoyu ramen was still all the rage in central Japan. Karamiso… is kind of like spicy miso, which can be dissolved into the soup depending on individual taste. The soup is accented with fish and shellfish, and uses homemade ramen which ends up being firm, bouncy, and kind of thick – kind of like mee pok but thicker, if that’s imaginable. 

After we were done we walked out of the museum only to find a Freshness Burger right outside. If you read Chubby Hubby, you’ll know that on his last trip to Japan he raved about this burger chain, so I was determined to try it at least once while I was here. As it were, everytime we stumbled on this joint it was right after we’d stuffed ourselves silly eating something else, so we never got down to it… 

I think the amazing thing about Japan is the level of community and the amount of trust people have in each other. There are seriously rows and rows of bikes like this one on the streets, and none of the bikes are locked. They’re just left there till the owner comes back, and no one bothers about them. Maybe it’s partly because bicycles aren’t a usual mode of transport in Singapore that people like my cousin end up having their bike stolen the moment they walk away for 5 minutes to buy a drink after they lean their bicycle on a lamp-post. 

I was happy just to pose outside Yokohama Arena even though I wasn’t going to watch a concert there. Speaking of concerts it seems Johnny’s boys have set seasons for performances for certain groups, like KAT-TUN seems to only ever perform in summer while Kanjani8 usually takes the autumn-winter period while NewS performs in spring. Except that we had the misfortune of being there in May when all there was was Hey!Say!Jump holding concerts, and their faces were freaking everywhere – on TV, on billboards, on the poster outside the Arena, on magazine covers… Ugh. Sorry, you can feel my disgust. Its youngest member is only 12.

They look like this and I hate them.

By this time it was nearly dinnertime so we decided to go back to the hotel and slack a bit before emerging for dinner. Ha. We ended up falling asleep and we only woke up at 8pm. 

In the middle is the view we get when we walk past the bridge (yes, the one that says Fuck ‘Em) that connects our hotel to the main shopping areas. To the left is where Takashimaya is; but before that you have to walk through a whole area of pachinko parlours, hence the flashing lights. On the right is Vivre, which is kind of like Far East Plaza, which also houses Starbucks. What? It was cold. And I happen to have a lot of these shots of me looking mildly grumpy over the rim of a cup of coffee in cold weather, while I’m on holiday. I have no idea why either…

The Roku Cafe was off an alley just before our hotel, and we were intrigued enough by it to walk past it that night and peer in. It was a lovely small place and had this… hippie vibe. Complete with fairy lights, green walls and pink sofas, a bartender with a goatee and a cute chalkboard outside announcing the week’s desserts. We resolved to come back the next night to try it out. 

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Day 2: Motomachi-Chukagai, Minato-Mirai. 

There are loads of Chinese in Yokohama. Big enough for a Chinatown, which is more than you can say for the rest of Japan. Naturally the food here is not particularly authentic, but most of the immigrants are still fresh enough that you can speak Chinese and be understood, and even better, taken as a kindred spirit and so be given an extra-large pao. Hur hur. 

I need to confess that I am a total nerd when it comes to Yokohama. We took a picture of the main gate, which says Chukagai (中華街) and even hugged its huge pillars, but it turns out we’re not the only ones who love Chinatown. See! The freaking vending machine proclaims it! But that’s not all. At the risk of sounding like an extreme fangirl, let me tell you that Shofukumon (招福門) was featured in a KAT-TUN x3 show, which was filmed entirely in Yokohama, and it was where Taguchi brought Megumi out to eat, and it was his favourite restaurant growing up in Yokohama.

So yes. I admit it. I felt small thrills whenever I visited these places and went “Oh! They were here!” just like any other obsessed fangirl. Sigh. One must have their weaknesses. I try to be honest.

You can’t really see it from here, but we walked across a shop (pictured at the bottom left corner) filled with loads of women queueing up. It was then we realised it was a shop whose sign said “结昏相谈” :D

Often you don’t really realise how much red there is in a place till you take this kind of shot. And it’s the kind of thing that makes you think, ah, this is Chinatown indeed… The thing about being anywhere Chinese is that it’s bound to be colourful. There’s just so much activity, and it’s amazing to watch.

Seriously. Blink and you’ll miss it.

We spent quite a lot of time in Chinatown. The original plan was to eat here, but we couldn’t find anything we wanted to eat that we couldn’t already get back in Singapore, though there was a particular 烧腊 stall that looked very tempting. And yet it was wonderful to be in a place that was so distinctly Chinese, but done in a way that could only be Japanese. I imagine it might be the same in every other overseas Chinatown. It’s Chinese enough, but it’s still local. 

After this, we headed to Minato Mirai. It’s a fairly new development but has been increasingly popular in the past few years. It’s by the waterfront, so naturally there is a lot of entertainment to be found. Queen’s and Landmark Tower are huge shopping centres, and like Vivocity they have boulevards that overlook the water. But it’s more than that. You’ll see.

This ferris wheel had the dubious honour of being the biggest ferris wheel in the world for quite a few years before the young upstart Singapore Flyer took its position (I note with some glee that when the Beijing Ferris Wheel is unveiled in time for the Olympics, the Flyer will lose its position…). It’s not just a wheel but a gigantic clock. There are exactly 60 carriages (one on each spoke) and before 7pm everyday each spoke lights up individually and tells the time like the second hand of a clock does. (Yes, that’s how I knew there were 60 carriages… why do you ask?) 

There is a theme park here called Cosmoworld (コスモワールド), just outside the shopping area, and just before the water. Entrance is free. The red wheel you see up there has the potential to spin you right round baby right round, and it goes vertical and horizontal and all sorts of directions. On the side of the ferris wheel across the bridge there are rollercoasters and godknowswhat. There was a two-storey carousel floating on the water. It was pretty amazing.

There was basically everything, including a horror house. I am also duty bound to inform you that they filmed here as well, and Jin basically ran out of the haunted house and left the girl there to fend for herself. Right after he said “Actually… I’m really experienced in going to haunted houses”. Whee.

Anyway we walked around for awhile and waited for the sun to set, and then queued for the ferris wheel. I think there’s never really a right time to go on the ferris wheel, but the best time to go is while the sun is setting, so you can catch both day and night views. I think this was one of the best ferris wheels ever. The view was stupefying. Like it was just… wow.

It’s no secret how much I love city lights, more than landscapes, so for me this was possibly the best thing ever. Look at it! How can you not fall in love!!!! Imagine sitting in a carriage with the girl of your dreams, going, “あの … 実は、君は大すき!”

From these pictures you can see pretty much how the theme park was like, and how it was in relation to the buildings. The top right picture shows the theme park on the side near the shopping area, whereas the ferris wheel we were on was closer to the sea, and further out you can see the rest of the buildings and the harbour/waterfront (bottom left). As you can tell from the bottom left picture, there was a gigantic rollercoaster that spiraled round (top right picture) and then dropped from about half as high as the ferris wheel (which is pretty high) down into a hole underground and back up again. It might have been the best rollercoaster ride ever. And it was only 500 yen! 

After we got off the ferris wheel and rollercoaster, we walked across the boulevard. The bottom left picture was taken from across the water (not yet the open sea, since there were more buildings behind the bridge we were on) and seriously… it was kind of magical. We felt like we were looking at a postcard.

The middle picture is the entrance to Cosmoworld at night. I love light displays. They make me really, really happy. Even the street lamps were pretty and they twinkled randomly across the bridge. It doesn’t look like much, till you’re back on the other side of the water sitting on a grass slope looking at the bridge, and suddenly you’re realising there’s music playing and the lights on the street lamps twinkle in time to it. There are couples everywhere lying on the grass a comfortable distance from each other, and friends sprawled across with bottles of beer and a lot of laughter. 

After this we walked across somemore, past the ferris wheel area, and came to the red brick warehouses (now known as Aka-Renga Park; which is just basically Red Brick Park). These used to be warehouses but are now converted for modern use, and have patios set up outside for restaurants to serve customers, and the whole area is just lit up in red. There’s nothing else near this stretch of waterfront save these warehouses, and the effect is really pretty. 

This was also where Kame filmed Tatta Hitotsu no Koi… 

In front of these warehouses is the open sea, and you can see the ships dock while tugboats come in. The air is fresh and the wind blows steadily. It’s dark but the air is warm and full of hope. We walk on. We’re happy we’re here, and we got to see this in person. We’re glad we’re together, because it would be half as beautiful if we were alone.

(If you’re interested, the full album is here.

The rest of the posts are here: Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo.)