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Day 18 - Yokohama, a city of convenience
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It's going to be a short entry today. Basically because we didn't do anything worth writing about. Basically today was a rest day.
We boarded thee Shinkansen to Yokohama, which is a decent 2hr 45min trip. I'm glad we have the rail passes, as each one of these Shinkansen trips would be costing us about $150 - $220 per ticket, and more if we chose to reserve seats.
Departed at Yokohama, and walked the 3 blocks west to the hotel. We checked our baggage and walked back towards the train station to find something for lunch. After walking through the Shin-Yokohama station shopping centre, which is dominated by an 8 story "BIC Camera" camera and electronic megastore, we looked through the restaurants on the top floor. The menus looked great. The prices didn't. It seemed that $30 was the entry level for lunch at these places, so needless to say we moved on.
We ended up finding a food court with many different dishes, including a tempting looking Italian restaurant. We were not sure what to have, until we came across CoCo Curry House, our favourite curry place from Osaka. This made our decision easy, and we had lunch there, which was superb, just like the Osaka version had been.
Back to the hotel for the 4pm check-in. At around 5:30pm Veronica decided to take Charlotte for a walk to get a few essentials, like coffee and pocari sweat, and got caught in The Perfect Storm II. The weather doesn't seem to build up in Japan like it does in Australia. At one point the weather looks like it may rain, and seemingly the next minute there is torrential rain, with spectacular thunder and lightning. This was one of those times, and the rain bucketed down, and a spectacular electrical storm lit up the sky and reflected off all of the tall mirror-surfaced buildings. So what should have been a 15 minute walk took 90 minutes.
I then went for a walk later on to get some dinner, and I've come to realise something. I dont think I quite blend in over here. Seriously. While I was walking around the food district there were people out the front of each one yelling enthusiastically at passers by, flailing their arms around, and waving pamphlets in their faces to try to entice them to choose their restaurant. When I approached, all yelling, flailing and pamphlet waving stopped. Complete silence. They politely stepped off the footpath and looked somewhere else, and waited for me to pass. After I had passed the yelling and flailing resumed. Not sure if they knew I wouldnt understand what they were yelling about, or whether they just didn't want "my kind" in their restaurant I'm not sure. Either way, I dont think I would have felt comfortable entering, even if I wanted to.
And this was not just one random restaurant on the strip, but rather it was the case at about 6 or 7 of them. Others were polite enough to still offer a pamphlet, which I declined, but many of them went out of their way to make sure the pamphlets were down and they were out of my reach by the time I got there.
But Yokohama, or this area at least, is a city of convenience. Convenience stores at least. If you can walk more than a block without seeing at least one 7-11, Family Mart, Daily Mart or Lawsons convenience store, you are either walking with your eyes shut, or you have walked far enough so that you aren't in Yokohama anymore.
Angela's Birthday, Yokohama Zoo and Landmark building (which we decided to forgo today) are on the agenda for tomorrow. Tomorrow night we are going to be tired.
Where I stayed:
Toyoko Inn Shin-Yokohama Ekimae Shinkan
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| 20. | Day 18 - Yokohama, a city of convenience - Yokohama, Japan Sep 07, 2008 (  3 ) |
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