Yokohama - lots of walking around - Tuesday February 9

First I would like to call your attention to the right hand side of the blog. I was able to create a photo album through picasa and hope to have one for the rest of our ports.

I am happy to report that we only arrived an hour later then we were originally scheduled for arrival. This was great because we as LLC’s once again had to assist with the debarkation process. This took a lot longer than it did in Hawaii. We got off of the ship and hung out in the terminal handing out passports before everyone went through customs and immigration. We were last to go through this process and I finally headed out around 1:30pm. I left with Laura, Debbie, Danielle and Nate (Danielle’s husband) on a mission for an ATM and lunch. We walked around for quite some time. It took 4 different ATMs before we found an ATM that everyone was able to use. I also found it amusing that instead of selling hotdogs like are sold in every 7-11 in the United States they sold pork buns.

Pork buns:

We went to the Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse for lunch near the port and ate at their equivalent to a food court. I ordered something that I picked from a picture and it was some sort of rice bowl with cut up dumplings on top. It was quite tasty. For dessert we shared an ice cream sundae – ice cream served on top of cornflakes topped with a donut and honey. Try this!!! The cornflake, vanilla ice cream, honey combo was delicious.

Here I am with my first meal in Japan:

After lunch we did some more walking around Yokohoma. The part of Yokohoma we were in was mostly office buildings and what was bizarre was that we felt the need to whisper as we walked around because there was silence all around us. Our next goal was to get to the Yokohama Brewery. On our way there we ventured down this great street which combined the history of this city with the modernness of some of the buildings. When we arrived at the “Brewery” we realized it was much more of a small bar with a restaurant upstairs though they were brewing beer there. We sampled some beer, sat and chatted for sometime all while being left on our own. We are almost certain that the restaurant was closed for a private party and the bar did not open until later but they let us in and were very gracious hosts. When we were ready to leave we asked if they sold t-shirts or glasses and the bartender showed us a very large pint glass, shrugged his shoulders and said 1000 yen (about $10). When none of us seemed interested in purchasing this he came back to us looked at me, handed me a glass and said “Present…shhh.” This was the first of many offerings that we would encounter in Japan.

This is what we saw when we walked into the brewery.  I am pretty sure the sign says closed for private party.  We are still waiting for it to be translated for us.

After the brewery we walked around and came upon a much more lively part of Yokohama, Isezaki Mall, a bustling area that was a street closed to traffic aligned with shops and restaurants. We ate dinner in this area. I had the Japanese plate of fried goodness…gyoza (Japanese dumplings), some sort of battered chicken and a big bowl of sticky rice. There were talks about going to Karaoke this evening but after dinner we were all very tired and knew that we had a long walk and I had plans to meet people at 6am the next day.

Plate of Fried Goodness:

This is part of the Yokohama skyline, the building all the way to the left is the Yokohama Landmark Tower, which is the tallest building in Japan.  The Ferris Wheel in the middle is the largest ferris wheel that is also a clock (it is digital!).