Aloha Yokohama - August 2015

Aloha Yokohama

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Friday 7th August

From Aloha Yokohama 2015

The plane started its descent as dawn broke over Taiwan and the window seat proved to be a great investment. Taipei airport was surrounded by farmland that seemed to predominantly consists of dams. The plane was only on the ground for a bit over an hour, so it was a bit of a rush to disembark, get directed up and back a number of corridors, and make it back to the departure gate in time for boarding. The drinking fountain took a bit of figuring out (not helped by the Chinese instructions); instead of paper cups there were waxed paper envelopes that you could fill with barely a large sip of water. Then off to Japan!

Having passed through the formalities at Narita, I took the bus to Yokohama, having been warned that the traffic was pretty bad. During the trip we were passed by a trio of poodle-themed coaches and drove through an almost-10km-long tunnel under Tokyo Bay. I grabbed lunch at the City Air Terminal- good to start to tune my ears into hearing lots of Japanese and practice pointing at menu items. I'd made the mistake of not planning out the final segment of the journey to the hostel; the JR station's tourist information got me as far as the local station but from there I ended up in a bit of a rabbit warren of streets. While searching for someone to ask directions, my phone's battery ran flat. A fairly elderly Japanese lady with perfect English wasn't able to help but was able to provide me with plenty of information about converting to Buddhism, had I desired. I had to resort to going into one of the several hotels, plugging my phone charger in and then pointing at the address on the screen. The receptionist wasn't sure of the where the hostel was but asked one of her colleagues, who gestured for me to follow before leading me three blocks and then pointing "Kore! Kore! Kore!" (Here! Here! Here!) up a side street. At last I found the hostel which was a little bit rudimentary in some respects but it was a relief to settle in.

My local contact, Takako, was unwell so with the rest of the day free I headed out to see the neighborhood. I headed towards the nearest local landmark, Yokohama Stadium, and found myself a little bit excited that a big crowd was gathering for a baseball match, and further delighted to see that the Hanshin Tigers were the visiting team, as I'd sort of adopted them after my first visit to Osaka. I confirmed the starting time and found out where to buy a ticket from some non-Japanese-looking people that I heard speaking English... and French.

I had enough time to get some dinner so I went to a local cafe-style restaurant and ordered from the menu (by pointing) - only to then notice that the others in the restaurant were ordering by using a touch-screen terminal. I came across a couple more of these over the next few weeks and the experience came in handy!

Back at the ground, my seat was well-placed behind the foul pole in the Tigers fans area and it was great fun to get swept up in all the (choreographed) chanting - particularly for "Gomese" (Gomez) and "Me-ton" (Murton). It was good to go for a wander and check out all of the merchandise stalls. There were numerous fun moments during the night that had nothing to do with the play - particularly the massed inflating and releasing of big sausage-shaped balloons during the 7th Inning Stretch, "Downunder" playing during a 'fan cam' moment, and the fireworks at the end of the game. The Tigers weren't good enough on the night (but made up for it over the next two nights' games).

Saturday

From Aloha Yokohama 2015

The hostel was comfortable enough but really didn't look too appealing, and that seemed to apply to the surrounding neighborhood as well. The local inhabitants consisted mostly of elderly men with various disabilities, which had me wondering if it was an area used for housing war veterans. I headed down to the waterfront and past an open air yoga class (I found a phone on the ground but giving the language barrier, felt quite unable to take any steps to return it to its owner so left it for someone else to do so), had some breakfast, and then wandered up to the Osanbashi Pier and cruise terminal, where the Aloha Yokohama festival was being held. It was a fantastic venue for a festival, with several performance and market areas over a couple of levels, and with the organic design of the pier giving an feeling of exploration... perhaps one drawback was that it was quite exposed to the fierce sun as the clouds burned away, although I was still enjoying the comparative warmth. It was quiet early in the day so I had a good chat to various stall holders such as the shark conservation guys and the coffee stall, as well as one of the Maori performers.

I met up with Takako, a friend from Melbourne who'd recently returned to Yokohama, and it was great fun to enjoy all the performances and stalls that promoted Hawaiian culture and tourism. We're both big ukulele fans so we made a point of checking out a few ukulele groups that put on great shows, and of course I invited them all to perform at the Melbourne Ukulele Festival. Other notable performers were the Kiwis performing Maori songs and doing a fantastic Haka (I thought of a multilingual pun "Pocari Kari Ana" too late...). Thanks Takako for telling me about the festival and for showing me around!

With things winding down at Aloha Yokohama I had a look around the waterfront area; there were a few other festivals on - Indonesian Dancing at the information centre and art space, and a big ticketed concert, Pokemon event (alas I missed the dancing Pikachus) and youth music festival around the Red Brick Warehouse (enjoying bands such as LiLi). On the way back to the hostel I passed the baseball stadium and watched the last couple of innings on the big screen along with a few hundred other fans - it was good to see the Tigers level the ledger.

Sunday

From Aloha Yokohama 2015

While checking out I was invited to join the hostel staff and fellow travellers for their weekly free breakfast - great to swap some travel stories! I then took a different path to the waterside, via Chinatown - it was already quite hot at mid-morning, and I was taking some tablets in advance of the next day's adventure, which made me feel a little tingly and very slightly out-of-sorts. I headed back to Aloha Yokohama- it was quite similar to the previous day's program but there were some very enjoyable performances, a lot of them MC'd by the rapid-fire Japanese of Mr Coconut.

By mid afternoon I'd had my fill, so headed back to pick up my luggage. I'd thought about doing some more sightseeing but with the heat as a deciding factor, I headed back to Ishikawacho station, and after changing to an express at Yokohama, I was at Shinjuku in no time at all (actually about 40 minutes). I'd taken more care in planning the route to my accommodation this time - I'm glad I did because Shinjuku is a huge mass of railways, roads, people and skyscrapers - but there wasn't much street level signage so I walked around the block before finding it, but before long I was comfortably settled in. I decided to forgo the nearby Aussie bar in deference to having a practice run of the next morning's walk (forgetting to time it), checking out the Sumitomo Building's free observation deck, and getting some fast food.

Yokohama Overview

I'd only had a chance to explore a little of the Minato Mirai 21 area, but it had been a great place to visit and I'd felt very comfortable getting around. There is a Yokohama Ukulele Festival that I'll have to check out next time; also the guys at the hostel recommended seeing the Kamakura area as an alternative to Kyoto - it was just a bit too hot to manage it this time.

The omnipresent vending machines certainly helped with the heat, as did the Lawson and 7-Elevens that had a good supply of ice-creams for about half the price of what you'd pay back home.