Is not so often that I have a chance to go out of Tokyo, but last April I was almost every weekend out, in particular, twice to Yokohama (and I wanted to go almost since I arrived to Japan, in 2012!). First time I went with my friend Natalie from Barcelona, second time with a group of students from Waseda International Club.
If you live in Tokyo and want to go to Yokohama, probably you’ll have to go through Shibuya. Me’ I’m lucky that I live nearby Fukutoshin Line, that goes in one go to Yokohama, and the trip takes a bit less than 1 hour from Shibuya Station. I’ll describe next in this post some of the things you can do when visiting Yokohama.
You can also download this article from GPSMyCity app to get directions to use offline on your iphone or ipad of the places I reviewed.
RAMEN MUSEUM
Once you arrive to Yokohama, then what? Usually is better to start from the farthest point in Chinatown and then go back to Minato Mirai, but we wanted to make a visit to the Ramen Museum first for food hunting.
Once inside we were traslated to what it seemed an old 1920’s japanese movie scenario. Themed park Ramen square, many different main Ramen restaurants from all regions of Japan and their noodle bowl versions.
It was supposed to be a quick meal, but the large lines outside the shops, and the amount of varieties made my choice more complicated. One hour long waiting for a Ramen bowl was unexpected.
The time waiting was worth it.
It was so good I had to make a call to tell the news to my friends. I didn’t expect to get trapped.
YOKOHAMA MARINOS STADIUM
After satisfying our craving for Ramen, we went to see the Yokohama Stadium and take some pictures.
YEAH! Yokohama Marinos Stadium.
CHINATOWN
The trip continued to Chinatown and Minato Mirai but, as I said at the beginning I went twice to Yokohama, so I had more time to explore in two days.
An awesome thing in Japan is that, even if you don’t know what do you want to eat, you can see the plastic reproductions of the food you can choose in many restaurants. We found the same displays in Chinatown, that helped a lot.
TRICK ART MUSEUM
The Trick Art Museum, is located inside the eight storage building Daisekai, on the North Gate Silkroad of Yokohama’s Chinatown. There’s also a huge chinese souvenir shop, and a chinese food court.
MINATO MIRAI
After recovering from the brain damage done by the visual tricks we took a long walk to Minato Mirai to see the Red Brick Warehouse (a venue for events) and the nightview of the port. Just wonderful.
Check out this video made by some of the guys of Waseda International Club that organized the trip to Yokohama, nicely done!
