We’ve been in Tokyo for a little over two years now and somehow hadn’t managed to make the short trip south.

To be honest, if you listened to the guidebooks you would think there was nothing at all to do in Yokohama. Seriously, it received less than a full page. You basically get a few paragraphs mentioning it being the 2nd largest city in Japan, having a Chinatown, and a ferris wheel, but no major shrines, temples, monuments, or futuristic whatnot.

So perhaps you could understand why it took awhile for us to make the short trek.

Even at lunch time on Saturday we still weren’t sure if we were going there or some place else. Finally after a moment’s debate on the train we decided we’d check out Chinatown as the lure of chinese food was too hard to pass up.

Heading down we took the bullet train and within ten minutes arrived at Shin-Yokohama station. From there we took a local train another 20 minutes to Chinatown. What we found when we arrived was kind of surprising.

Tokyo as we may have stated once or twice is congested, loud, hectic and often leaves you to wonder why you ever stepped outside.

Yokohama turned out to be open, calm, reserved, and pleasant (for this afternoon at least). It also didn’t hurt to find a grocery store with root beer minutes after getting off the train either!

So with drinks in hand we wandered into Chinatown and took in the sites.

Overall there were just a handful of cultural sites, but plenty of restaurants. There were almost too many options to choose from, but eventually we settled on a small food-stall selling various candies and buns stuffed with things like sesame, peaches and others with pork, chicken, etc. After making our purchases we settled into a nearby park for our snacks to take it all in.

After a few hours of wandering, we found ourselves outside the baseball stadium and surrounded by some beautifully blooming Tulips.  The warm, sunny afternoon it seemed like the perfect time for M to take a quick break from wandering and snap some photos.

All in all, I would highly recommend Yokohama and hope to get to a baseball game out there shortly.