The adventure begins

  Yokohama, Japan
Monday, December 25, 2006

Narita
Well after 10+ hours of flying, I'm finally here. I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing and apparently nobody speaks English either. I'm lost at the airport and since I'm flying solo and traveling solo for the first part of the trip, I have to figure things out for myself. I guess here's where the adventure begins!!

Narita Airport 1

Narita Airport 2

The first thing that I notice is that I left my contact lens back in the US. CRAP!!!! Well there's not much that I can do now. It's not like I can fly back and pick it up....

The first task that I do is go pick up a rental cell phone. The price isn't too bad. At current US exchange rates, it works out to be $10 base, $5/day, and $0.70/minute charge. It's not the cheapest but I guess it's reasonably priced.

Next I try to take a shuttle to my hotel in Yokohama. When I get to the counter the girl informs me that there's no direct shuttle to any hotels in Yokohama. The best that I can do is to go to the Yokohama air terminal. I didn't know that Yokohama had an airport!? I have no idea what's going on so I figured I might as well buy a ticket to the air terminal and figure out the rest when I get close. Hopefully once I get there I can find a way to the hotel. This is turning out to be more exciting than I had hoped for.

To Yokohama
I get on the bus and find a seat. Everybody is speaking in Japanese. I don't see any tourist either. I guess Yokohama is not a big tourist location. This is not good. I'm a stranger in a strange land and I have the slightest idea what I'm doing.

The bus is starts filling up and we leave the terminal. As we pull out of the stop, a Japanese woman sits down next to me and proceeds to text message on the phone. All of a sudden she gets a call and she starts speaking on the phone. Mandarin. When she finishes speaking on the phone I start speaking with her in Mandarin to get some information on what to expect in Yokohama. Apparently her husband is Taiwanese and she's able to speak in intermediate Mandarin. I explain my situation and she agrees to help me once we get to the Yokohama station. Wow my good fortune!! Of all the people who could have sat next to me, I end up with the one person who can speak a language that I can understand!

Apparently I was mistaken when the Bus lady said Air Terminal. Yokohama does not have an airport. What she had meant it was the Bus Stop for the airport shuttle. The woman sitting next to me was of little help when we got to the station. She just said she had no idea where I was staying and just ditched me once we got off of the bus.

Confused I find an attendant at the information counter who showed me where my hotel was located. Fortunately it was a very short cab ride away. If I did not have my luggage, I would have just walked there. Instead I elected to take an $8 cab ride.

Taxi Line

While in the taxi line, I ended up chatting with a Japanese woman named Keiko who was working in London for a real estate company. Apparently she was home for the holidays and we ended up having an interesting conversation while waiting for the taxi. We exchanged business cards and I told her that if she should drop by SF Bay Area to look me up. It's really interesting how random people on this trip have just been chatting with me. The last time I was here in 2004, nobody said anything to me at all. I wonder what's different this time, is it because I just seem more mature?

Yokohama
Yokohama is the neighboring city to Tokyo. It's about a 25 minute train ride from Tokyo. I'm meeting my friend Shino tomorrow in Yokohama. She suggested that we meet in Yokohama because it was closer to some of the famous shines and landmarks.

Yokohama Hotel 1

Yokohama Hotel 2

My hotel (Yokohama Excel) was nothing special. However because it was in a convenient location, it was an excellent choice. It's near a bunch of shopping malls and right next to the subway. I'm beginning to think that this was the design of the Excel hotel chain. They seem to be moderately priced hotels right next to shopping and subway lines.

Yokohama Hotel 3

Bidet 1

After checking in I spend the evening just walking around. The thing I immediately noticed about Yokohama is now unfriendly it is for non-Japanese speakers to navigate. There are only Japanese signs. Nobody speaks English either. Ironically a good number of people speak Mandarin. I think it's because it has on of the largest Chinatown in Japan? Good thing I can speak Mandarin. That has been extremely usefully for me in trying to figure out how to get around. Who would have thought Mandarin would have been so useful in Japan?!

I ended up just wandering around for a couple of hours to beat the jet-lag. I ended up eating at a food cart that served ramen. Dirty by Japanese standards, the food is still MUCH cleaner compared to other places that I've been to (i.e. China/India). I always liked to eat the street food in different country as it seems the most authentic representation of what a typical person would eat. I got a bowl of cha-siu ramen for like $5. I did have some difficulty ordering because the old man at the cart spoke no English. He thought I was Japanese and tried to have a conversation with me. I couldn't understand what he was saying so I just pointed to the noodles the guy next to me was eating and pointed 1 finger. That seemed to work.

After the noodle cart, I wandered around some more and ended up at a Yakitori place for another late night snack. Yakitori is essentially bite-sized meats on a skewer that chef cooks over a tiny coal grill. Yakitori is like bar food in Japan. You typically go to these places order a few skewers and have beer/sake. You really have to see the chef cooking to get an idea how weird it looks to see a large man grill tiny skewers on a tiny grill. It's like these guys are grilling on a toy grill. It's highly inefficient but highly tasty food. It's unfortunate they don't have any of these types of places in SF Bay Area. I've been to one in LA but I guess it's just not that popular back home.