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.

City Spotlight: Akihabara (part 1)

Akihabara ('Akiba' for short) is an area of Tokyo which is a nerd mecca. If you have any interest in electronics, video games, anime, manga or collectable figurines, I recommend checking it out. If you don't, then there isn't really that much for you here. If you want an area with some geeky stuff but a variety of other stores and entertainment, try Ikebukuro instead.

In line with geek interests, Akiba's shops lean very much toward cute or sexy female characters, and also giant robots like Gundam. Akiba also caters to fans of real people, especially cute young girl groups such as AKB48, but most of what you see are anime, manga or game characters. As you might expect, this is an area that attracts a lot more guys than girls.

For me personally, the things I especially like doing at Akiba are: getting kebabs from the kebab men outside the station, looking at figurines, looking at the wacky gifts and souvenirs, going in the retro video game stores, and having a coffee at Starbucks or Excelsior.

You can also buy anime or game music, specialised electronic parts, computers and computer equipment - there are a couple of big-name generic electronics 'department stores' as well as lots of smaller shops.

Location

Akihabara is in Tokyo; it's north of Tokyo station, not far from Ueno. It's on the JR Yamanote, Keihin-Tohoku and Sobu lines, as well as Tokyo Metro's Hibiya line and the Tsukuba Express.

Akiba's main street

If you take the Electric Town exit, you'll come to a main street lined with gingko trees. This has some of the major electronics stores as well as other geeky shops. There's also a cluster of shops immediately around the station. If you cross the main road you'll find another cluster of streets with other electronics and hobby shops.

If you take the opposite Showa-dori exit, there's a big Yodobashi Camera store.

Peculiarities

One specialty of Akihabara is the 'maid cafes'. These are cafes where the waitresses are dressed as cute maids, and act a little cutesy... well, that's it, really. Some of them are really just like normal cafes, but the waitresses wear French maid's costumes. I visited a maid cafe in Akihabara once; there was nothing untoward about it, and it had a mixture of male and female guests. Others, I have heard, may involve more interactivity or quirks like maids playing children's games with the customers or giving massages or something.

Ad for a maid cafe. You can often see maid girls on the street trying to attract customers.

Another feature of Akiba is that it has quite a few weird and wacky gift and souvenir shops. There are some souvenirs and snacks you can't readily find in 'ordinary' Japanese souvenir shops. You can buy canned oden. (Why would you want any oden at all?) You can get cookies with maids on them. You can buy snacks with the Prime Minister on them. You can buy cans of bread with anime characters on them. (Yes, canned bread. Yes, it really does sound disgusting, doesn't it?)

I will continue with more geekiness in the next post. ^_^

City Spotlight: Ikuta Park area (Kawasaki)

I know Kawasaki city well, and although I love it, I can tell you it's not exactly renowned for its beauty and nature. That said, if you get away from the city centre, you can find some pretty spots. One of the most natural areas in Kawasaki is Tama ward, and one of Kawasaki's best attractions is Ikuta Park.

The park is lush and green, covering a large area, with seasonal flowers and various attractions. You could do a lot of walking if you wanted to. In the park you can visit Nihon Minka-en and the Taro Okamoto Museum of Art, among other things.

Nihon Minka-en, aka the 'Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum' is a collection of historic houses from various parts of Japan, brought to Kawasaki and carefully re-erected and preserved so that visitors can see the traditional architecture. Even if you're not interested in history, this park is quite pretty and atmospheric in its own right. When we went, they had volunteer staff in the houses, caring for the fires and chatting to visitors. It does have some signs and information in English - obviously not as much as in Japanese.

Taro Okamoto was a famous artist who did a lot of abstract pieces. His hometown was Kawasaki. At this museum you can see a lot of his works, both paintings and sculptures. I'm not a big art fan and I don't know much about it, but I enjoyed looking through this gallery and pondering the meaning of the various pieces. The museum is easy to spot, with the distinctive white sculpture behind the entrance.



There are other attractions in Ikuta Park, like a planetarium and science museum for youth, but having never been to these, I can't comment. If you want more info about opening hours etc, check out this page, which is part of the City of Kawasaki website - a good place to find info about Kawasaki and get tourist info.

The closest station is Mukogaoka-yuen station (Odakyu line, a 15-minute walk); the closest JR station is Noborito on the Nambu line (a 20 minute walk from the station, it takes about half an hour to get to Noborito from Kawasaki station).

(It strikes me that considering this blog is called 'Yokohama Vibe', I tend to post more about Kawasaki than Yokohama. My logic is that Kawasaki is so much less famous, and there's less info on the web about it, so this may be of more interest. Plus, since I lived near the 'border' of Kawasaki and Yokohama, I always spent a lot of time in both cities.)

City Spotlight: Kawasaki (department stores)

Kawasaki is the city between Tokyo and Yokohama. The business and social heart of the city is located around JR Kawasaki station, so in this post, when I say 'Kawasaki', I mean that area. I'll start with the department stores.

JR Kawasaki station is surrounded by many department stores (Keikyuu Kawasaki station is also nearby).

LaZona Kawasaki Plaza is the biggest, coolest and most popular department store. It's connected to the station building itself. It has a big open-air courtyard and is a nice place to sit outside on a fine day. It has a movie theatre, game centre, gym (Konami), BIC Camera, big discount store (Daiso), lots of restaurants, a good supermarket, food hall and food court. It has a big Maruzen bookstore, which has a reasonable English selection.

You'll often see people lining up at a small bakery/cafe in the courtyard - they are buying dojima rolls, which are sponge roll cakes. For some reason they have attained 'fame' status and so there is usually a line of people buying them.

I don't like buying clothes here - they are mostly expensive, except at Uniqlo - but I often go to LaZona for the food, or the ambience. The food court has a few good choices, my favourite being the Thai. I also like the Diner, which is on the fourth floor, and has outdoor seating - it has the best burgers I've tried in Kawasaki.

Kawasaki BE is also part of the station building, on the other side from LaZona. Again, I rarely go here except for food. There is a Krispy Kreme. The basement floor has a food hall; I like the Italian store 'Plates', which has a 'fill your own tray' lunch bento deal, and I always love Beard Papa's cream puffs. ^_^

Azalea is a big underground mall. It is not very atmospheric, but it is very useful on rainy days and when navigating about, as it is rather sprawling. There is a big taxi area in front of the station which you cannot walk across, so you can use Azalea to walk from the station to Citadella, or More's, or one of the many bus stops.

Azalea has, I think, the most reasonably-priced range of clothes, if you are looking to buy clothes. I also like the tempura and soba restaurant (?a chain, I think) and Cafe La Mille, which has very overpriced drinks, but does sell scones with jam and cream, which I occasionally crave. ^_^

Kawasaki Le-Front is a little outside the station - if you go out Kawasaki BE, it's on the right. It's one of those somewhat annoyingly designed department stores, which is very tall with not that many stores on each floor, so that you are constantly going up and down escalators. (Kawasaki More's and Dice are the same style.)

Le-Front has a decent 100-yen store, and a big Yodobashi Camera, and another Konami sports gym. I sometimes go to Subway here... oh, on the second floor, there's a small Italian restaurant with outdoor seating, and some other spaces where you can sit outside. (The weather is super nice at the moment, so I am all about outdoor seating ^_^).

Saikaya, near Le-Front, is in my opinion the least interesting of all the department stores. Even the restaurant floor and food hall are not great. Saikaya does sell some luxury and brand-name goods, if that floats your boat. It doesn't float mine.

Kawasaki More's is another tall, thin department store, across the taxi bay from Kawasaki station. It's not very interesting, but it does have a decent-sized Book Off and a large, obnoxious game centre. If you go to the basement area that connects to Azalea, you can see the World's Shortest Escalator. I'm not kidding. There's even a Guinness Records certificate on the wall.

In the summer months, More's has a rooftop beer garden. You can't see much view, as the roof is heavily enclosed in thick protective fences. But it's still nice to enjoy the open air and all-you-can-drink. ^_^

Kawasaki Dice is another tall, thin department store, near Keikyuu Kawasaki station. There's an electronics store, a fairly big Aoi bookstore (they also have some English books), and, well, I haven't spent much time here...

City Spotlight: Hakone

Hakone is not a city, but an area. The most common way to come in is to arrive at Hakone-Yumoto station (I usually take the Shonan Shinjuku line from Yokohama station and change trains at Odawara. It takes just over an hour, depending on connections). From Hakone-Yumoto, you can take buses or trains to explore the region.

Yukata girls in Hakone-Yumoto

Hakone has two main highlights: views of Mt Fuji, and hot springs. The hot springs are a popular getaway for Tokyo people. I recommend actually staying overnight at a ryokan that has hot springs. See my post on ryokan.

First, Mt Fuji. Now, I speak from bitter experience here: you cannot see Mt Fuji from Hakone-Yumoto; you will need to travel a good 45 minutes or more to see it. Some of the best views are from Lake Ashi (take a bus to Moto-Hakone/Hakone-machi), or on the ropeway going from Sounzan.

Mt Fuji from the ropeway

The other tip is, Mt Fuji is usually not very visible. If seeing it is important to you, be sure to choose the clearest day possible; the cooler months of the year are better for this. If it's summer, even on a fairly clear day, don't get your hopes too high. You're better off going, hoping just to see some pretty nature and scenery; that way you won't be too disappointed. ^_^ 

The Hakone 'recommended course'

I took the Hakone 'recommended course' on a very clear, sunny winter's day. It was lovely, and I recommend it. This is the only time I've ever been able to take good pictures of Mt Fuji. Be aware that you will spend a lot of time travelling - each leg of the trip takes a while - but the journey itself is the point.

View of Mt Fuji from Lake Ashi.

On this course you will start and finish at Hakone-Yumoto - bus to Hakone-machi, take a boat across Lake Ashi, take a ropeway up the mountain, take a cable car to Gora, and the Hakone Tozan train back to Hakone-Yumoto. Or you can do it in reverse.

Some highlights of this journey are the boat ride across the lake - the scenery is really nice - the views of Mt Fuji, and visiting Owakudani. This is on the ropeway route. It's called 'hell valley' because it's full of sulfurous vents spewing smoke - very cool. You can also eat black eggs boiled in the hot springs, which are supposed to add 7 years to your life. Sadly, when I went, they were sold out.

Owakudani

If you're going to take this course, you should buy a 'Hakone Free Pass', which lets you ride the various trains, cable car, ropeway, boat and bus without having to buy separate tickets for each. Also, it will save you money, especially if you are going to travel for two days, as each leg on its own is quite expensive. Be sure you take the correct form of transport though. For example, there are two companies that run boats across Lake Ashi; only one of them is valid with the Free Pass.

Also from my own experience, I can warn you: if you're coming from Tokyo or Yokohama, it will be a lengthy trip; you should come early and be aware of the timetables. Basically, everything closes Excessively Early. You should plan to have completed your route by 5pm or earlier, as many of the forms of transportation etc stop running at 4:30-ish.

Other highlights

If you have time to try other activities in Hakone, I also recommend the Hakone Open-Air museum (on the Hakone Tozan line, get out at Chokoku no mori). I really loved it. I'll write a separate post about this place. 

I also really enjoyed Yunessun, which is like a hot springs 'theme park'. It has lots of 'specialty' hot spring baths, like green tea or coffee baths. There's a small hot spring waterslide, and many other pools. You can bath in a salt bath that makes you float like the Dead Sea, or let tiny 'doctor fish' nibble the dead skin off your feet. Also, unlike normal hot spring baths, you wear a swimsuit, so men and women can enjoy it together. To get there, take a bus from Hakone-Yumoto and get out at the stop 'Kowakien'.

City Spotlight: Odaiba

Odaiba is an island created from reclaimed land; it's part of Tokyo. Actually, it's my favourite part of Tokyo. The main reason is that it's near the ocean, and it feels quite open - you're not surrounded on all sides by skyscrapers.

There are various attractions in the area, which I won't try to enumerate in full. Rather, I'll just tell you the things I've enjoyed there.

Getting there

Two nice ways to get to Odaiba are by boat or monorail. I think they're better during the daytime, if the weather is nice, but you can get some nice night views too.

To take the boat, go to 'Hinode Pier', in walking distance from Hamamatsucho station. You can take a boat to Ariake (where Tokyo Big Sight, the exhibition centre, is), or to Palette Town, both in Odaiba. It's 400 yen for adults.

To take the Yurikamome monorail, there are various stops; I use the one at Shimbashi station.

Both routes are really lovely and have good views of Tokyo Bay.

Palette Town

This is a kind of entertainment complex. It has a shopping mall (Venus Fort) with quite a funky interior. There are game centres, a car expo centre, and the giant Ferris wheel. I went on the Ferris wheel last night; they are having a Hello Kitty promotion, so the wheel is decorated with little bows, and you can enjoy Kitty herself bothering you with constant cutesy little comments as you ride.

To be honest, I was not that into this place; but if you are fairly new to Tokyo, I think it will be interesting.

Mirai-kan

Mirai-kan is a science and technology museum. It's interesting, if you have a passing interest (or more) in science. I recall that when I went here, the first exhibits we looked at were so technical as to be completely meaningless to me; however the rest of the museum proved interesting and intelligible. Hahaha... I liked seeing the display on the International Space Station.

Oedo Onsen Monogatari

Okay, some people describe it as kitsch, but I still enjoyed it. This is like a hot spring 'theme park', which is decorated with a theme of 'old-style Tokyo'. It's a great place if you want a hot spring that is tourist-friendly and unthreatening - there's some English signage, etc. You can also enjoy some sections with both males and females together, enjoy nice foot baths, and experience little fish nibbling your feet! 

I may dedicate a future post to describing this place.

Giant Gundam

I don't know when this Gundam will be taken down - soon, I believe - but as I mentioned in this post, there's a giant fighting mobile suit in Shiokaze Park at the moment. Shiokaze Park itself is rather nice for enjoying some harbor views.

Fuji TV building

In my opinion, this is better for people who know a lot about Japanese TV and TV stars; for me, the building was mostly interesting for its architecture.

Aqua City/Decks

Here you can see a fake Statue of Liberty. Hahaha... so, what this is, is a big shopping complex, which also has a movie theatre and Sega Joypolis, where I bought my Tails. ^_^ Sega Joypolis is basically a game centre, which also has a few rides and such; it seems a bit overpriced but I was attracted by the branding, being a Sega fan in my youth.

The best thing here is to sit at a restaurant on the deck and look over Tokyo Bay. It's especially beautiful at dusk. There is also a little man-made beach at the base of the building.

You'll hear a lot of people rubbish Odaiba beach, and it's certainly true that nobody dares touch the water - it is Tokyo Bay, after all. But it's atmospheric and quite beautiful. Last night I sat at a little cocktail place and had a Hawaiian cocktail, enjoying the balmy summer night and the lights of the Rainbow Bridge. Very very nice.

City Spotlight: Yokohama China Town (Chukagai)

This is Japan's largest China Town. It's full of bright, gaudy, ornate gates and temples, Chinese restaurants, and loads of shops.

This is a good place to buy tie-died hippie clothes, truckloads of cheap souvenir tat, and overpriced Chinese food. It's probably very good - I've enjoyed what I've had - but I would usually expect Chinese restaurants in a China Town to be quite cheap. Instead they sell probably the most expensive Chinese food I've seen in Japan. I guess it may be more authentic?...

You can also see Japan's most over-merchandised character in - wait for it - a panda suit!!

On a less snarky note, it's also a place to walk around while munching on a nikuman (Chinese steamed bun) or eating an icecream, or some hot chestnuts. You can buy various Chinese ingredients, tea, and cooking tools here. I always go here to buy jasmine tea; they're the cheapest and best tea bags I've found. Fortune tellers also do quite a trade here.

This place can be a little sleepy and quiet on weekdays, but on weekends it comes to life. You can also go and be traumatised by the paintings on the walls of Ishikawacho station.

City Spotlight: Motomachi

Motomachi is a street/area in Yokohama, near Chukagai (Chinatown). At one end of the main street is JR Ishikawacho station; at the other, Motomachi-Chukagai station.

Motomachi is a nice place to talk a walk, though there's not much actually there. On weekdays it tends to be a favourite haunt of old ladies walking little dogs with coats. If you like spending too much a lot of money on designer goods, you might enjoy the shopping. My own recommendations are the import food stores, the bookstore (which has quite a decent English selection, for a small store), and some eateries.

HB cafe (Happy Birthday cafe) is a cute little cafe near Ishikawa-cho station; it's one street over from the main Motomachi shopping street. It has good burgers, and quite nice cakes, muffins, coffee, etc. Most of all, I love their cookies. ^_^

Hara donuts - this photo is the only time I've seen the store without a small queue of people outside. My hairdresser told me this place is kind of famous, but nobody else I've talked to has heard of it... hahaha... 

Anyway, these donuts are organic and supposedly somewhat healthier than average donuts, though they still leave your fingers greasy when you eat them. They are a little bit cakey and less sweet than some other donuts. Every time I go to Motomachi I buy a couple; the white chocolate ones are my favourite. ^_^

Pompadour is a decent place to have a nice sandwich and a cappuccino. I used to study Japanese here, before I discovered HB. It's a (chain) bakery but also has a small cafe section.

Motomachi is very near China Town, Yamashita Park, Minato no Mieru Oka Park (Harbour View Park), and the Yamate foreign houses, cemetery, etc. You might like to include it in your trip if you're visiting some of those places.