Tokyo: Episode Four Yokohama 横浜

Actually we didn't plan to come to Yokohama (横浜) today but came here anyway because we woke up a weeeee bit too late to start out for Hakone which is part of a national park where there are "hot-spring resorts, mountains and lakes, breathtaking views of Mt Fuji" (according to my guide book). Which turned out to be a "good" decision cos the weather this day was just not suitable for outdoorsy activities, as you shall soon see..... ;-)

We alighted at a station too early and ended up looking at seagulls, lol.

Those white patches you see in the pic above are bird poo. They are all over the railing of the bridge as well. Here you see the significant other looking at the river below...

There are big big kois!! Ok lah, the one in this pic is quite small, lol.

We alighted at Yokohama station and thought that we could actually walk to the park we intended to go. We asked for direction to Cosmo World (which is a theme park with a huge ferris wheel because it would be easier than say ask for direction to the pier which has no name lah). In the end, we were directed to Cosmo Hotel, wahahahaha. The reception there told us to take the subway or train as it is really too far to walk.

Sigh. But one "good" thing turned out though. There was free internet at this hotel, lol. I logged on to my email and gave up after looking at the number of emails regarding children ministry matters. I don't think i want to think about my new project at church during hols ;-) And no, i didn't log on to Facebook (surprise surprise). Didn't miss it THAT much lah ;-)

So we had lunch and then took the subway to Motomachi-Chugakai Station (元町・中華街駅) The station has got illustations of street life in Yokohama in the early days.

Even an old copy of the gospel of Matthew :-) Amazing ya?

It was extremely windy. We walked towards the Yamashita Park (山下公園). Here you see the kids fascinated by the gingko leaves strewn all over the ground.

Gingko trees are commonly found along the streets of Japan.

Just minutes later, at the entrance to the park......

The skies turned dark, lol. Sigh, there were still things we wanted to see.

But how to? When you are taking shelter in front of the toilets, lol.

I think it was about half an hour later that the rain wasn't so heavy.

So we hooded up and left the park, boohoohoo. Soaked leaves.

We headed for Chinatown a short distance away.

Ninja. Turtle.

We weren't fascinated by Chinatown lah. Nothing special. The rain didn't help of course. But we looked at the shops anyway since Chinatown is enroute to the train station.

I was so glad to reach the hotel and called it a day =)