Yokohama Mama
26 Aug 2006
As it was Saturday, we decided to spend the day in Yokohama. Yokohama is a big sea port in Japan, just south of Tokyo. It also happens to be a big tourist destination, due to theme parks, large shopping centers, and waterfront attractions. We started off at "Yokohama Eki" (Yokohama Train Station). There is a very large shopping center there with everything you could possibly imagine and most things written in English. Unfortunately, it appeared the sizes were still Japanese as my American anatomy just did not fit into the clothing. Guess it's time to hit the gym!
From the Sotetsu Joinus (the name of the mall), we took a taxi to Queen's Square (~1000 Yen. Save money by taking the JR line to Sakuragi-cho station for 160 Yen). At Queen's Square there are many tall buildings, most notably the Landmark Tower, at 70 stories tall with an observatory on the 69th floor (entrance fee 1000 Yen cash). There are also many old ports in this area, one of which is emptied and attached to the Landmark Tower, now filled by shops part of the Landmark Plaza. It's not difficult to find a free street show here. This is also the area for the Yokohama Hard Rock Cafe, probably the most expensive Hard Rock I've ever seen. We also saw something reminiscent of the opening of a Crispy Creme in the United States... Japanese people queuing up for evening ice cream at a Cold Stone Cremery. It wasn't even the grand opening.
After a Japanese lunch at Kirin: The Beer Hall, we went to the local amusement park, CosmoWorld. We rode a water roller coaster (similar to Splash Mountain) and watched girls compete at Dance Dance Revolution in the 4-storey arcade (see the video). For you parents out there, CosmoWorld is a great place to bring children. Just make sure to have plenty of Yen in Cash as they do not take credit cards.
We ended the night with a walk through Yokohama World Porters, another gigantic shopping mall with stores from all over the world. We also looked into a room at the Yokohama Royal Park Hotel, but weren't up for the 30000+ Yen/night they wanted for the room, so we took the train back home (JR from Sakuragi-cho 160Yen, Sotetsu line from Yokohama Eki 370 Yen), stopping off near Yamato Station for an ice cream and some night-life street shopping.