We are supposed to meet up at 8am in Shinjuku, but Chris-san kinda overslept, so instead of meeting at Shinjuku, we made our way to Yokohama and met at Sakuragicho Station. Thus Alex-san and I took the Shonan-Shinjuku Line to Yokohama before changing to Negishi Line to Sakuragicho Station... The trip took less than 45min as we were lucky enough to catch one of the Rapid service..
We reached Sakuragicho Station around 9am, went to Beck's to wait for Chris-san and at the same time have our breakfast.. We ate and chatted.. Chris-san and Alex-san came around 10:30am and had their breakfast at Beck's too.. We weren't in a hurry or anything so we just take our time... We only went to the Yokohama Landmark Tower around 11am..
The Yokohama Landmark Tower (296m) is the 2nd tallest building in Japan, after Tokyo Tower (333m). Visitors could take the fastest lifts in Japan, which manage to accelerate to 750m per minute (at one point in time), and reached the 69th floor (273m) in about 40 seconds. The admission to the Tower is 1,000yen.
On a nice sunny and clear day, visitors are able to see Mt. Fuji from the Tokyo, but too bad today's sky wasn't very clear.. :( We couldn't see very far, but still the view up at 69th floor is very magnificent. Other than the usual souvenir shop, there is a small cafe and 3 vending machines at the 69th floor.. At the souvenir shop, we started to discuss how tall/big would Godzilla have to be in comparison with the Tower.. Thus Chris-san, using his keitai, started to search the Internet for the height for the Empire State Building and Godzilla.. We got the answers in the end to satisfy our curiosity... :p For those who is interested to know, Godzilla is between 50m to 100m depending on which film/books one refers to.. ;) We spend around 40 minutes up there..
After the Tower, we went to The Museum of Yokohama Urban History.. We walked to MinatoMirai Station and took the train to Nihon-Odori Station which is only 2 stops away.. The reason why I suggested going there is that there is a special photo exhibition on Yokohama's modernization history and with our (still) limited Japanese skills, it would be easier for us to look at pictures and understand (to a small degree) than to read all the Japanese explanations and descriptions which are usually the case in most museums here in Japan.. It was quite interesting looking at the pictures of people taken in the early to late 19th century.. We went to the Eurasian Culture Museum too as it was in the same building and admissible with our 500yen ticket. We left the museum before 2.30pm..
Next destination was China Town in Yokohama.. We walked there as it was less than 1km away..
This is my first visit to a Chinatown, if you discount trips I made to the 'Chinatown of Malaysia', Petaling Street. Maybe I was looking for something more traditional and authentic, but all I saw was consumerism and commercialism at its best... Everywhere I turned, I see shops or restaurants offering almost the same things, with very limited variaties.. Every restaurant or food shop is offering 麻婆豆腐, fried rice, gyoza (饺子), Niku-man (肉包子), moon cakes (月饼, as the Mid-Autumn Festival is only 2 weeks away), chestnuts (栗子), etc.. Every souvenir shop offer the same panda soft-toys, same phone accessories, same fridge magnets, etc... There is nothing to see, at least for me.. I wanted to try the Niku-man, but it was really expensive.. For one Big Niku-man, it costs at least 400yen!! :o And I saw the prices for the moon cakes too, it was ridicules.. 750yen for 1 black bean paste moon cake, without pumpkin seeds!! :o :o With the same amount of money I can get at least 8 moon cakes in Msia, or 4 in Spore.. Madness.. Luckily I do not have any cravings for moon cakes.. The only thing I usually craves are Zongzi (粽子).. :p
We had lunch at one of the restaurants.. after hearing so many bad reviews of restaurants in Chinatown Yokohama, I kinda lowered my expectation of having a good meal. But I was pleasantly surprised. The food was okay and the price was reasonable... At 750yen, we get to have a main dish (I had stir-fried pork with big onion as the main dish), with rice, some salad, a small bowl of soup, 1 spring roll and a small bit of salted vegetable... but one thing I need to complain about is their service.. it still needs improvement..
After seeing the shops, I had more or less gave up looking for something unique. I wanted to visit the Kuan Ti Temple (关帝庙). But when I got there I was very disappointed... The temple is too brightly colored and looked very artificial. The temple felt like it doesn't know how to BE a proper Taoist temple anymore.. Since when are visitors disallowed from going into the main (Taoist) temple?? :o The 4 deities in the temple were not properly titled (as in no title plaque on top of them telling visitors or devotees who they are, when all of them are so aged and blackened by the passage of time), all the temple attendants behaved as if you owed them money (black faced, instead of offering to help or give guidance/advices) and many other small things that just made this temple feel sooooooo wrong to me.. Instead of the usual awe and respect I feel whenever I enter a temple, this one just doesn't invoke any of it.. I had wanted to explain some of the stories behind the main deity, Kuan Ti(关帝) to Alex-san, but one of the attendants just chased us out after finding out that we did not pay to go in!!! I was pissed.. :@ :@ Usually, at temples I will make a small monetary donation and also make some other offerings (joss-sticks, candles, paper money, etc). I had planned to make some offerings but decided against it.. That 50yen that I put in the donation box is all they are going to get from me...
There are 2 temples in the vicinity. I could only remember this one at that time, but I wasn't disappointed for not visiting the other one after seeing how the Kuan Ti Temple was run.. It would probably be the same way.. The other temple was for Ma Zhu (媽祖), the Heavenly Empress. I had visited the legendary birthplace of Ma Zhu in Putian, China, two years ago so I won't miss visiting this Ma Zhu Temple...
We went back to Tokyo around 4:30pm.. Everyone was tired... But we had a good time.. It was fun hanging out with Chris-san and Alex-san.. Looking forward to our next hang-out session.. :)
Click here for more photos of my Yokohama trip.
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