Yokohama

I wasted a lot of time traveling the day I planned to leave Takayama.  Forgot my camera at the train station and had to turn back.  I lost 4 hours of travel time.  I had no definite plan of where I was going, which is both a blessing and a curse when backpacking.  All I know was that I had to get towards Tokyo or somewhere close to it. 

That's when I remembered my old iaido sensei back at UBC telling me Yokohama was a great international city.  It also happened to be a sister city of my native Vancouver.  I blitzed towards the place on the shinkansen. Once I got there and walked around at night, I fell in love with it.  It felt so much like Vancity.  Had a cheap dinner with local ale.

I got into town well after nightfall.

The next day, I rented a set of wheels and biked around town.  It wasn't terribly cold and once I got going it was totally fine. I hit a number of spots in just a few hours: the Mitsubishi Museum, Chinatown, Yokohama Harbour, and an area that resembled a cross between Yaletown in Vancouver and New Westminster Quay.

The variety of restaurants around Yokohama reminded me of home.  In Wuhan, there's not that much variety at all.  It's just local food and that's about it.  Not that it's a bad thing, but the Chinese love Chinese food.  (Correction: the Chinese of a certain region of China love their local food). But, in Yokohama, they love just about any flavor.  I was tempted to go into a Ukrainian restaurant for lunch, but settled for wonton soup in Chinatown (I was missing HK and Guangzhou at that moment).

'

My ride

The Mitsubishi Museum is made for kids, but there's some pretty interesting stuff.  I had a very nice basic Japanese conversation with this orange robot.

Looking towards downtown Yokohama

Another Japanese Chinatown.  Tai gui le!