It rained again on Thursday, but as the extended forecast wasn’t looking too special, so we decided to bite the bullet and head down to Yokohama for the day. Outdoors was bitingly cold; never had I been so grateful to be dressed like the Michelin Man!
Yet another thing to love about Japan (or Toyko at least – I haven’t experienced other cities in the colder months) is heated train seats. They seem to warm you up more effectively than hot air pumped through the air conditioner, and make things marginally less stuffy. On the down side, they’re a bit sleep-inducing… Thirty minutes after departing Tokyo, we were in Yokohama.
The original plan had been to head down to Minato Mirai, take a walk around the harbour and maybe head to the amusement park. But when we hopped off the subway at Minato Mirai Station, the weather wasn’t really encouraging this. In fact, it wasn’t really encouraging anything other than rugging up and staying indoors with a hot drink. We’d made the trek, though, so the outdoors had to be braved!
We took a look at the theme park, but between the rain and an unpleasant breeze, it wasn’t really worth going into. We continued on around the harbour. There were a fair few girls from Kanagawa University dressed up in full graduation gear (that’s Japanese style – kimono-eque dresses – rather than robes and furs), who must have been freezing. None of them seemed to be hanging around outside for long, though. Apologies for not having pictures of them. Stealth photography is difficult on a clear day, but when it’s raining and you’re trying to juggle a camera, handbag and umbrella and not get said camera wet…
Eventually, with the cold starting to seep through the layers of clothing, we retreated into a shopping complex. The initial plan had just been to warm up, but this soon turned into an impromptu shopping expedition, complete with Engrish signage:
We had kaiten-sushi (sushi train) for lunch, and followed it (not directly, our stomachs couldn’t manage it, but soonish) with crepes. Or should the be creaps? Yeah. The poor girl on crepe making duty gave up on mine after three failed attempts, but the manager on duty stepped in and eventually got the job done. Having learnt from last year about the richness of Japanese crepes, I stuck with the simple strawberry and custard option. Gem (if I remember correctly) went with an option involving pie, which she later referred to as a ‘dessert wrapped in a dessert’. The store we visited – as often happens in Japan – had a brag board with pictures of famous people who’d eaten there. The only one I recognised was Kato Natsuki from Hana Yori Dango.
Lucky Gem got to look like a guts while holding both crepes for the photo…
Then it was time to pack up and head back to Tokyo; me with a new pair of boots in an incongruously large bag that was a pain and a half on the train. Have some pictures for the road:
