City Spotlight: Minato Mirai

I can't believe I've had this blog so long without ever posting much about Minato Mirai. This is probably the number 1 destination for tourists visiting Yokohama.

Minato Mirai means 'Future Harbour' (minato = harbour), and it's just that - a harbour, with lots of modern buildings and development. The architecture and landscape is distinctive; if you see a picture of it, you immediately know 'this is Yokohama'.

For example, you have the Landmark Tower. This is essentially the tallest 'proper' building in Japan, barring a couple of towers like Tokyo Tower and Tokyo Sky Tree. By the Landmark Tower is Queen's Square, a series of three buildings that taper downwards, getting steadily shorter and narrower. There's also the hotel, Intercontinental Yokohama, which stands right on the harbour's edge and has a distinctive sail-like shape.

View from near Landmark Tower in cherry blossom time. Here's the Nippon Maru (a ship which also houses a maritime museum; behind it can be seen the Intercontinental and Cosmo World) 

If you walk out of Sakuragicho station and stand looking at the harbour, on your left you'll see Colette Mare, the Landmark Tower, Queen's Square, Intercontinental Yokohama, and then Cosmo World, a theme park, followed by World Porters, a department store. You can also walk to World Porters across 'Kishamichi', a footbridge; it's a nice walk.

Colette Mare and Landmark Tower, as seen from outside Sakuragicho station

The image at the top of the screen, which is my picture for this blog, was taken in Minato Mirai. You can see the three Queen's Square buildings, and the Cosmo World Ferris wheel.

If you continue walking from World Porters, you'll get to 'Akarenga' (the 'Red Brick Warehouse'), past the cruise ship terminal, and eventually, to Yamashita Park and Chinatown. If you like walking a lot, you could therefore do one big walking trail of most of Yokohama's tourist attractions. If you want to explore each area properly, I would recommend doing Minato Mirai on one day and the whole Chinatown area on another day, just so you can spend more time in each place without getting footsore. If it's a weekend and the weather is nice, the whole area will be lively and full of people enjoying themselves.

Some of the things you can do here:
-go up to the top of the Landmark Tower to enjoy a view of Yokohama from above
-go to the art museum (go to the space between the Landmark Tower and first Queen's Square building, then walk for a minute or two away from the harbour.)
-go on rides at Cosmo World, or play arcade games. The huge Ferris wheel - 'Cosmo clock' - is a good tourist attraction
-go shopping - Colette Mare and World Porters are particularly good for this, in terms of number and range of stores
-catch a movie at Colette Mare or World Porters
-go to Manyo no Yu - it's a building behind World Porters and Cosmo World - where you can have a real hot spring experience in Yokohama. The water is real hot spring water, piped in from Atami and Yugawara. It's more expensive than a run-of-the-mill onsen, but you can experience several different types of bath, including a shared-sex foot bath on the top of the building, where you can see a great view over the harbour.
-sit and relax on the grass on Kishamichi or outside the Nippon Maru (ship out front of the Landmark Tower).
-take a boat ride; for example, boats go from Minato Mirai to Yamashita Park.

Colette Mare is a new building - it wasn't there a year ago. It literally filled a gap in the market. There weren't many good shops right by Sakuragicho station. Yes, Landmark Tower and Queen's Square have shops, and quite a few of them, but these buildings, though cool, have a rather vast, cavernous feel - they don't have the same density of shops as your typical department store. And Landmark doesn't have many shops to appeal to the average Joe. But your tastes may differ.

Minato Mirai is nice for a variety of reasons, but for me, its number one advantage is you feel like you can get some fresh air and open space, which is important when you live in a huge metropolis like the Greater Tokyo area. While there are a lot of buildings around the harbour, it's one of the few places in the city where you can actually sit near the ocean and look out and not feel claustrophobic. There are places to sit on the grass, places to stroll around, places to have a nice coffee.

To see it, go to JR Sakuragicho station (on the Keihin-Tohoku/Negishi line and Yokohama line). You can also go to 'Minato Mirai' station (on the Minato Mirai line), which is located in the basement of the Queen's Square buildings.

Japanese Pet Peeve: Squeak squeak

Have you ever been to a Christmas lunch or toddler's birthday party where someone gives a small child a toy that makes a loud, annoying noise? The mother smiles and thanks the giver, with a slight note of strain in her face. She knows she will be hearing that toy drum/musical truck/whistle/jackhammer sound effect, over and over again, over the months to come.

In Japan I have noticed a product that would make me feel this way: squeaky shoes. These are shoes for toddlers that emit a loud squeaking sound with every step. Imagine someone squeezing a rubber ducky. Now, as small children tend to run around a lot, imagine them squeezing that ducky relentlessly for minutes at a time. Not pleasant for anyone who happens to be in the same restaurant or shop.

I can only imagine that the logic for buying such shoes is to be able to have an idea of where your child is at all times. In such crowded cities, it might be useful to be able to hear when your small child is running off somewhere. At least, I hope this is the reason, and it's not a 'cute' fashion choice. I have to admire the patience of mothers who can tolerate it!

Baseball

Before I begin this post on sport, I would like to offer a hearty congratulations to Japan's women's soccer team, Japan Nadeshiko, for winning the World Cup!

I watched the first half of the match in an izakaya, but had to drag myself to bed (well, it was almost 5am). When I went to bed it looked like America would win, so I was super chuffed to turn on my TV this morning. Go girls!

The other day I went to Meiji Jingu stadium to see the Tokyo Yakult Swallows play the Chunichi Dragons (Nagoya's team). (Yes, there is a baseball team named after fermented milk. If you look at other baseball team names, you'll realise it could be much worse. The Nippon Ham Fighters, for example.)

This photo is of Yokohama stadium, during a Swallows - Bay Stars match.

In Japan there are two main baseball leagues: the Central League and the Pacific League.

The Central League is probably a bit more prominent/popular. Its teams are the Chunichi Dragons (Nagoya), Hanshin Tigers (Osaka - well, close enough), Hiroshima Toyo Carp, Tokyo Yakult Swallows, Yokohama Bay Stars, and the Yomiuri Giants (Tokyo).

The Pacific League comprises the Chiba Lotte Marines, Fukuoka Softbank Hawks, Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, Orix Buffaloes (Osaka), Saitama Seibu Lions, Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles.

Yes, there is a lot of unsubtle product placement going on in these team names.

If you're in Japan in summer, you should check out a baseball game. Even if you're not that into sports, it is a very interesting and very Japanese experience.

I have never seen any baseball other than Japanese games, so I can't tell you much about Japanese baseball and how it compares to American baseball. American friends have described Japanese baseball as conservative, and not that exciting. What I do enjoy, though, is the act of participating in Japanese-style ouen, or cheering.

There are some ouen leaders, who orchestrate cheers with whistles and signs. Seriously! While your team is at bat, some dude will hold up a sign to show what cheer you should do next (the signs say things like 'go go let's go' and 'kattobase!' (which means something like 'slam a home run!'). Whistles set the pace. There's a team with trumpets and the like to play the cheer songs. The more popular or established players all have their own particular cheer songs.

In the case of the Swallows, cheers are done using plastic cheer bats with Swallows colours and designs - you hit them together in lieu of clapping (which is just as well, because it would be a lot of clapping; while your team is at bat there is no rest in the cheering). If the Swallows get a home run, all hell breaks loose - or rather, out come the umbrellas, for a rousing rendition of 'Tokyo Ondo'. (Check it out on YouTube.

Tokyo Ondo is the Swallows winning song. It used to, to my great amusement, open with the words 'screw you Yomiuri!' because the Swallows are long-time rivals of the more popular Tokyo team, the Yomiuri Giants. This lyric has officially been changed to a more 'gentle' version, but a lot of fans still sing the original. ^_^

Each team has its own little idiosyncracies in terms of cheering, but it's a good workout for the fans. In fact I often get so distracted by watching the fans that I forget to focus on the game, ha ha ha. Funnily enough, cheering in unison like this is actually great fun and really adds to the atmosphere of the game.

You can get tickets ahead of time from ticket machines, like in Lawson convenience stores. You can also go to discount ticket booths, which can be found in many shopping malls around Tokyo and Kanagawa.

A Day In: Ebisu

I had a few hours to spend, and thought I'd go to Shibuya. But actually, apart from shopping and eating, there's not much to do in Shibuya. What was my plan? Go to Starbucks - where they're so busy they can only serve one size of drink, and there's never a seat - and watch the pedestrians cross the 'scramble' crossing? I have done just that several times, but I decided to go to Ebisu instead.

These lanterns say 'Ebisu Ondo' ('Ebisu Marching Song'). I'm not sure what that means. There might be a festival later.

Ebisu is a fairly unremarkable small hub in Tokyo; one of many. It's on the JR lines, also the Tokyo metro (Hibiya line). The station is surrounded by department store; in this case the Atre building. There are lots of streets with small shops and restaurants and bars all around.

I chose Ebisu because of Yebisu Garden Place. ('Yebisu' is the old spelling of Ebisu, but is pronounced the same. The area was actually named after Yebisu beer.) This is a complex with a few buildings, department store, a beer museum and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

Yebisu Garden Place

To get to Ebisu from Kawasaki or Yokohama, you can take the JR Tokaido or Keihin-Tohoku lines to Shinagawa, then transfer to the Yamanote line. From Yokohama, you could also take the Tokyu Toyoko line and transfer to the Hibiya line at Nakameguro.

I arrive in Ebisu and start by going in search of coffee. There's a cafe and sandwich shop right near the outside west exit ticket gates. It's pretty hot inside; the cafe is presumably following power-saving measures. Nice coffee, though.

Going back to the east exit side of the station, I follow the signs to Yebisu Garden Place. There are tunnels with moving walkways to speed your progress; it takes about 5 minutes to walk there from the station.

It's a hot day. I'd like to eat lunch somewhere... but I can't find a place. In the so-called 'restaurant floor', there are two restaurants - one is an izakaya full of businessmen socialising, the other is a ramen shop. I find a Burger King, and a cafe with fairly feeble-looking Italian food, and... not really anything else.

I go into Krispy Kreme as a temporary measure. I ask for one original glazed donut. Apparently they are having some kind of celebration and giving 'presents' to customers. The 'present' is a free original glazed donut. So... the lady gives me my donut and refuses payment. If I end up spending no money there at all, can I even be considered a customer?...

It strikes me that Krispy Kreme is getting quite ubiquitous now. I remember when there were only two or three of them around, and the opening of a new store was a big deal; there'd be ridiculous lines of people waiting to buy. Now I see branches all over the place.

I go to the photography museum. I have been here once before, and I really liked it. They have exhibitions which change periodically. I think there can be up to three exhibitions at a time, but today there's only two. You can buy a single ticket or a combination, and see both exhibitions. I choose to see one exhibition (700yen), that of the 'World's Press' - acclaimed photographs by press members from news stories last year.

It is a very good exhibition. Although some photos are of fun subjects, like festivals or interesting cultural oddities, generally speaking, it's not a light exhibition. It's quite something to see a year of tragedies laid out one after another. Here's an oil spill; here are pictures of overcrowding in Sierra Leone's prisons; floods in Pakistan; bodies of people killed in a Tibetan earthquake; illegal abortion methods in Kenya; a man failing to rescue his friend from drowning...

You see the suffering of the world, and it feels very far removed from the place you are. There are lots of images of poverty and desolation. When you are in the heart of safe, sunny Tokyo, with well-dressed people walking around you, in a clean and well-lit building, all that grief seems a world away.

Then you see the display of photographs from this year's tsunami, and it reminds you that nobody is immune, and tragedy can strike anywhere. Suffering does not belong only to developing countries.

Anyway, if you appreciate photography, I would definitely recommend this museum. I should think of something else to say, because it seems tasteless to segue immediately from human suffering to what I had for lunch. -_-

As I mentioned before, one of the other main attractions of Yebisu Garden Place is the Yebisu Beer Museum. I have previously mentioned Kirin Beer Village, in Yokohama. Kirin has nicer surrounds and a free tour with free tastings. However, it's a bit inconvenient to get to, and the tour is only in Japanese and is rather dry. Yebisu Beer Museum is more conveniently located, and has more interesting displays (assuming you do the tour). You can also buy beer jelly. No, I don't know why you'd want to.

For lunch, I go back to Atre and have soba and tempura with cheap beer. For some reason, this particular restaurant seems to be the most popular one on the restaurant floor. Soba and tempura is a good combination, I think. The unhealthiness of the tempura is somewhat mitigated by the more wholesome soba.

After this, from the west exit of Ebisu station, I see a sign for the 'Yamatane Museum of Art'. I've never heard of it before, but it seems to be fairly nearby, so I walk. It's a really hot day, and the sun is beating down quite fiercely. What should be a short, easy walk is rather a drag.

When I finally get there, I find that it is a museum of Japanese art. Just as a personal preference, I don't really care for ukiyo-e art. I mean, it's pretty and evocative, and I'm sure many people get a lot from it, but I don't feel much when I look at it. Just, 'oh, that's nice, some mountains. Oh, this one is obviously spring. Oh, more mountains.'

This exhibition is not just ukiyo-e, though; it's a collection of paintings, most of them from the last century, of landscapes showing the beauty of Japanese nature. As is common in Japanese art, the seasons are a predominant theme and, yes, there are lots of mountains. I enjoy it, though. Although I haven't visited a lot of the places in these paintings, it does show the natural beauty of the Japan I love.

It is not a very large exhibition, considering the entrance fee of 1000 yen, but it's not bad and may be a good place to visit if you're in the area and have an interest in Japanese art.

I go back to the station, stopping at the Segafredo cafe in the Ebisu Prime building. (A good chain, by the way, but only in Tokyo and further north. None in Yokohama.) I think I drink too much coffee in the summer heat, since I'm always wanting to go inside airconditioned places. ^_^

On returning to the station, I have one final place to visit: Good Day Books. This is right outside Ebisu station, and has a big collection of second-hand English-language books. The prices are not especially low - not like a Book Off - but what makes this store great is its variety. There are a lot of books you just can't find new in Japan, and this store also has a good collection of Japanese language study books. I recommend it!

Saving electricity

In the Greater Tokyo area, there is not a lot of visible difference since the tsunami. A lot of shops and restaurants have donation tins where you can give to the earthquake appeal. Friends have told me about damage that happened; for example, some older buildings in the Yokohama station area, and a ceiling collapsing in Kawasaki Muza. But to the casual observer walking around, there's no damage visible down this area.

One thing you will see a lot of, though, is 'saving electricity' notices.

Since power is now being conserved, a lot of businesses have this sort of sign displayed. Specific examples include:
-air conditioning off, or restricted to certain areas (for example, malls with uncooled corridors but cooled shops, trains where the air con was only switched on after the trains got crowded; most of the airport - a huge, airy space which would no doubt take a lot of power to cool - didn't have air con)
-escalators not running, especially where there is more than one escalator for each direction
-hand dryers disabled in bathrooms
-sports matches finishing earlier
-modified train timetables

Shopping in Kawasaki

Well, my first day back in Japan (I do love Japan ^_^) and I spent the day in Kawasaki, shopping. I've already written 'a day in' Kawasaki posts (see here and here), as well as 'Kawasaki city spotlight' posts (see here and here). So I thought this time I'd write about 'things I bought today in Kawasaki'. ^_^

I include some prices so you can get a feel for how much things cost here (prices would be similar in Yokohama or Tokyo). The current exchange rate is 100 yen = $1.15 (Australian) but I will just roughly translate the prices.

Books

At Maruzen in LaZona (near west exit of Kawasaki station, go down to the bottom floor), I bought these books:

Kanji for intermediate level (￥1890, $22). It is a functional book and looks practical. It doesn't look exciting. I have never seen a single Japanese textbook that is anything other than completely boring and uninspiring visually. (To be fair, most of the English textbooks published in Japan are similarly uninspiring.) I hope to take level N3 of the JLPT at the end of the year.

A Geek in Japan (￥1890, $22). I've been following Hector Garcia's blog, Kirai Net for a long time. He posts interesting content and great photos of his experiences in Japan. This is his book; I had planned to order it online, but I found it in Maruzen. It is not a re-hash of his blog posts, but a guide book full of great photos, with lots of information about Japanese culture, travel information, and some geeky stuff (despite the title, this book is certainly not only about geeky stuff but much broader ^_^).

If this was Australia, a nice-looking book like 'A Geek in Japan' would definitely be at least $40, so I'm really glad to come to Japan. So many cheap books. ^_^

Book Off

At Book Off in Kawasaki More's (across the road from the east exit of Kawasaki station, on the 3rd floor), I bought these CDs by nobodyknows+, Going Under Ground, Bonnie Pink, The Yellow Monkey and Hitomi Yaida. I don't know if they'll be good, but I like other songs by these artists, so...
Considering how expensive new CDs are here (often close to ￥3000/$34 each), second-hand CDs are super cheap. And second-hand CD shops abound. In the case of Book Off, there are different sections with different prices; all of these were from the ￥250 ($2.90) section.

At this Book Off, you can also find an English book section (prices generally range from ￥150 - ￥500 per book, but may be more for particularly large/nice books). You can also find cheap video games (in Japanese only). For comparison, I found Pokemon Diamond for ￥950 ($11). In second-hand game stores in Australia, I've never seen it for less than $55!

I also got the iTunes card from Yodo-

Sorry, pause to say that there's an earthquake happening at the moment. It's lasted a full minute! The hangers in my wardrobe are bumping against the wall. It's gentle, so nothing too scary, but I must admit I feel differently about earthquakes since the recent disasters. Before, I found the small tremors rather fun, since they were only small, but now they are a reminder of how nasty things could potentially get.

Anyway, got the iTunes card from Yodobashi so I can download Japanese music. But Japanese iTunes is not like the English one. English iTunes has pretty much any English song you can think of, while Japanese iTunes has a much more select range; even quite famous songs are not necessarily on there.

Speaking of music, I did drop into Tower Records (in Cinecitta, in the 'Tower of Pisa' building near the movie ticket box office). It's a nice way to check out the latest Jpop releases, since they have lots of music listening stations set up, where you can listen to albums on headphones. I plan to get the new album by 'Unison Square Garden' before I leave, but I feel like I already spent way too much money today...

Shoes

I got the shoes in Azalea, Kawasaki's underground mall, just outside the east exit of the station. This mall has seasonal displays and temporary sales in the centre - I've seen them sell traditional Japanese cultural paraphenalia, second-hand books, fruit and vegetables - depending on the week. And they often have a section where they sell cheap clothes and shoes; that's where I got these. They are not especially great but I needed a pair of comfortable sandals for the hot, humid weather here. Cost about ￥4800 ($55). There are many cheaper pairs around, so I plan to buy a few more pairs before returning home.

Azalea is always my pick for reasonably-priced clothes in Kawasaki. In general I'm not a big fan of Japanese fashion, at least for myself. Having pale skin and dark hair, the pale pastel colours don't favour my complexion, and not having a willowy figure, I do not want big, baggy clothes that hang on me like sackcloth. Also, there are a lot of fashions that are in roughly the same pattern and fabric as pyjamas.

What I do love buying in Japan are shoes. Having rather small feet, and coming from a city with ridiculously expensive footwear, I love Japan. I can't help feeling amused to see the shelves of shoes where 'M' - medium - is '23.0cm - 23.5cm'. That's an Australian size 6 or 6.5, folks.

Supermarket stuff

Well, I don't need to go into much detail here. This stuff is from the supermarket in LaZona (ground floor). I got salad (boasting '12 types of vegetable', but it's half cabbage, as most supermarket salads are) and beans to snack on, because I feel like eating out in Japan, it's difficult to find dishes that have many vegetables. I don't know if home cooking is different, but think of all the main types of Japanese restaurant - soba and udon, ramen, tonkatsu, sushi, curry, donburi - and very few of these dishes have vegetables. Nabe, I guess, but this is summer and I don't want to eat nabe.

The beans and salad were about ￥200 ($2.20) apiece (for pretty tiny servings). The apple juice was nice and cheap at ￥148 ($1.70). The two-minute noodles were about ￥100 ($1.15), the nori (seaweed slices) ￥138 (for a lot of pieces!)...

I like these 'granola' bars. I doubt they are especially healthy, but they're tasty. I discovered them when I was living in Nagoya and needed some alternative to muesli bars (which don't exist here).

The bread - ￥138 for three slices - is from the bakery in the supermarket. The bread is super soft, but you can actually taste the sugar in it. It's really not very good for you. I must try to find some tasty, but less outrageously unhealthy, bread today. ^_^

100 yen shop stuff

There was a great 100yen shop in Kawasaki Le-Front, on the 9th floor. It's no more, but there's a new one on the 7th floor. It's okay... and the sorts of things you can buy at a 100 yen shop are pretty good, I think. Back-up headphones, socks, gift bags, a camera case, post-it notes, hair ties, blah blah. I hope to buy lots more sockettes, the little foot covers that fit inside shoes. 

Everything 105 yen (including tax), or $1.15. Nothing to note, except that little notebook with the hamster on it. It's actually a kanji practice book for kids; inside, it's not a lined notebook, but ruled into grids, so kids can practise writing kanji in the boxes. Hopefully, if I have a book dedicated to kanji, I will actually use it. Ha ha ha...

Traveller tips - money

Japan is a cash-based society. There are ATMs all over the place, like in convenience stores and outside banks, but most of them only allow you to use Japanese bank cards, ie to make withdrawals from a Japanese bank account. At the airport, of course, you can find ATMs that will let you withdraw from overseas accounts.

If you need more money once you're in the city, you can find a post office. A lot of post offices have ATMs where you can use international credit cards, while most other ATMs - and I have tried a LOT of them - don't.*

*(I have successfully used my card in at least a dozen countries, from Egypt to Guatemala, Singapore to Norway. Japan was the only place I've found that had foreigner-unfriendly ATMs as the default.)

7-11 also often has international card-compatitble ATMs.

You should be aware that many ATMs actually have operating hours and may be closed/inaccessible at night.

Withdrawing from an international ATM generally incurs a currency conversion fee and a withdrawal fee, but this is usually still cheaper than converting your money at a currency exchange.

You can find currency exchanges around major cities in Japan, especially in very touristy places or in the most major banks, but they're not exactly ubiquitous. You have to seek them out, probably look up online where to find them.

Nonetheless, when it comes to money, do what's comfortable for you.

Traveller tips - Kawasaki and Yokohama hotels

Since I'm in the middle of planning my trip, I thought I'd share my process with you. ^_^

Hotels

I love this website: Jalan Net. Compared with English sites, you can find a much wider variety of hotels there, book them online, earn points which can be used in the future, and you can usually find things that are much cheaper than the standard range of 'international' hotels on English sites.

The problem? It's all in Japanese. Happily, with the help of Denshi Jisho, I have enough Japanese to work my way through it, but if you have no Japanese at all, it might be too difficult.

I've been in four different hotels in Kawasaki. The Nikko was the best, but then my company was paying for it at the time. ^_^ For cheaper ones, my favourite so far is 'Hotel The Crane', or at least, I had a good experience both times I stayed there. In my experience, service is efficient, rooms are fairly small but in good condition, but it's not far from the station, there's a bathroom, heater/air con, toiletries and Internet in the room (it's not a hostel, though the prices are cheap), you can get plans that include a simple breakfast, etc. Booking online, you can easily stay for 4000 - 5000 yen ($45-$55) a night.

A nice thing about travelling solo in Japan is that they often have single rooms and you are generally expected to pay per person. Like if you stay in a ryokan; often, one person or two can share the same room, yet each person will pay the same amount no matter its occupancy, which means it's no more expensive to stay there as a single than as a pair. In Japan, when searching hotels, I find it is a lot easier to find single rooms for single-friendly prices.

Staying in Kawasaki is nice too, because Kawasaki itself is a cool city, yet it's a bit less expensive to stay there than in Yokohama and Tokyo. But if you take the Tokaido line for ten minutes in either direction, you'll be in Yokohama or Tokyo.

Hostels in Yokohama

If you want cheap digs in Yokohama, there's a particular district which has a lot of hostels. It's near Ishikawacho station, about ten minutes walk from Chinatown and Motomachi. The street itself is not exactly pretty, but it's in easy walking distance of some nice places. Prices are quite good - you can pay  3000 yen a night! - but you'll get small rooms, shared showers and toilets, showers may be coin-operated, etc.

I have personally stayed at 'A Silk Tree' and 'Yokohama Hostel Village'. They're both cheap and good value for money; rooms are pretty small and basic, but that's what you'd expect, right? Location-wise, those two hostels are on opposite sides of the same street. I would recommend the Hostel Village; it just felt nicer. If you're into socialising in hostels, it's also a better bet. Silk Tree felt a bit drab and quiet, with no real public spaces.

Unless I'm on a really strict budget, I prefer to stay in Kawasaki because it's more lively and more central (also, my friends live there). If you're going to Yokohama station, it actually takes the same amount of time from Kawasaki station than from these hostels near Ishikawacho.

Japanese accommodation

I've mentioned before that I really like staying in ryokan (Japanese-style traditional inns) but I haven't recommended them in the case of Kawasaki and Yokohama. It's not that they don't exist - I assume there must be a few of them - but these are not really 'traditional' cities. If you go to a city like Kyoto, Nara, or Hakone, you feel it's a bit more traditional and natural; if you stay in a ryokan there, you feel like you're indulging in local culture. In Kawasaki or Yokohama, well, I guess you could do it if you wanted to, but since ryokan are often more expensive than regular hotels, I'd rather save them for a relaxing town with a fitting atmosphere. Also, it's really nice to stay in ryokan in towns that have an onsen (hot spring) culture, so you can enjoy the real hot spring baths.

Out of curiosity, I just did a perfunctory search for ryokan in Kawasaki or Yokohama, and the ryokan that came up tended to be rather far from the metropolises that surround Kawasaki and Yokohama stations. As I said, there probably are some in the cities themselves, but I don't know of any personally.

One thing you could do if you want a more Japanese experience is that a lot of hotels and hostels offer a choice of Western-style rooms (with beds, carpets, etc) or Japanese-style rooms (with futons, tatami mats, etc). They're usually the same price, so perhaps you could specify that you'd like a Japanese-style room, so long as you don't mind more sitting on the floor. ^_^

Trip!

I take a pause from posting from my old diary to say that I will be back in Kawasaki, my old stomping ground, next week on holiday. If it inspires me, then, I might have some new material. If I don't post, it means I'm having too much fun to blog. ^_^

Church

One thing I thought I'd write about is my church in Yokohama. I don't know how typical this church was - I'd say probably not very! - but in case you're interested to hear about church-going in Japan...

I found the church online; it was an ordinary, I guess you'd say Protestant, church. The reason I chose it was because it was multinational and bilingual - I didn't want to go to a church with only other ex-pats, since I was living in Japan, but nor did I want to go with only Japanese, where I wouldn't understand anything.

In that sense, this was perfect; there was a good mix of Japanese and international people attending. The church was led/run by Japanese Hawaiians, who spoke fluent English and Japanese. They gave the church a unique flavour; a lot of people wearing Hawaiian shirts, wearing leis, doing the shaka sign during the messages, etc. It gave it a nice, laid-back feel.

The church had one other quirk, which was that it didn't have a fixed location. There were four or five different venues, and the church moved from place to place according to the week and the venue availability. I got to see some new streets in Yokohama this way. ^_^

The meetings were bilingual. This manifested itself in three main ways:
-overhead projections were in both languages. For example, if we sang a song, there would be perhaps a couple of verses in English, then a Japanese version of the same.
-messages were translated. For example, the pastor would speak in Japanese, and have an assistant translating after every couple of sentences.
-when they handed out message notes, they had copies in both English and Japanese

You might think that it would be disjointed to have messages translated. But the translators were good at their job, and I rather liked it. First, it was good Japanese practice. Then, it meant the messages were usually kept a bit more direct and simple, rather than roaming into obscure theological tangents. Also, hearing a message at a slower pace, bit by bit, gave you more time to think about what you were hearing.

I liked this church. I only went for a few months, but it was a friendly place that seemed to preach the truth. This blog post is not meant to be an ad, but I might as well post the link, since I would recommend it: New Hope Yokohama.