Place names in kanji

If you don't have Japanese characters enabled on your computer, this will look like a whole lot of nothing.

Here are the Japanese names for some places in and around Yokohama. Here they're listed in romaji, hiragana and kanji.

Yokohama　よこはま　横浜
Kanagawa　かながわ　神奈川
Tokyo (actually 'Toukyou')　とうきょう 東京
Kawasaki　かわさき　川崎

sen (='train line')　せん　線
chikatetsu (='subway')　ちかてつ　地下鉄
shinkansen (=bullet train)　しんかんせん　新幹線
Keihin-Touhoku けいひんとうほく　京浜東北
Minato Mirai みなとみらい　港未来 (Minato Mirai is often written in hiragana)
Chuukagai ちゅうかがい　中華街
Motomachi　もとまち　元町
Sakuragichou　さくらぎちょう　桜木町
Ishikawachou　いしかわちょう　石川町
Kannai　かんない　館内
Yamate　やまて　山手
Negishi　ねぎし　根岸
Oosanbashi おおさんばし　大さん橋
Akarenga souko (Red Brick Warehouse)　あかれんがそうこ　赤レンガ倉庫 ('renga' usually written in katakana)
Sankeien　さんけいえん 三渓園
Shin-Yokohama　しんよこはま　新横浜

You can get around in Yokohama pretty easily without needing to know these words in Japanese, since many signs are written in both Japanese and romaji.

Notes: When written in romaji, the 'long' 'o' sounds tend to be shortened. So Toukyou is written 'Tokyo', Sakuragichou is usually written Sakuragicho, or Oosanbashi as Osanbashi.

A few interesting points, if you don't know much about kanji...

the 町 ('cho') in Sakuragicho and Ishikawacho means 'town'. This character can also be written 'machi', as in 元町 (Motomachi).

the 桜 ('sakura') in Sakuragicho means 'cherry blossoms' and the 木 ('gi') means tree

the character 川 ('kawa', sometimes 'gawa' when it appears in the middle/end of a word) means 'river'. You can see this character in 川崎 (Kawasaki), 神奈川 (Kanagawa) and 石川町 (Ishikawachou)

the character 新 ('shin') means 'new'

the 'tou' 東 in 'Toukyou' means 'east', and the 'kyou'　京 means 'capital'. You can see this 'kyou' in the city Kyoto (which used to be the capital) - 京都. You can see the 'tou' in the word 'touhoku', a region in Japan ('touhoku' means 'east north').

'Yamate', 山手, funnily enough, actually has the same kanji as the busy Yamanote train line in Tokyo.

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Incidentally, I am soon to move to Nagoya (名古屋 ^_^) for a short while. I might take the opportunity to write a little about that city as I discover more of it, as there doesn't seem to be a lot of info online about the city.