Around Yokohama

Yokohama has a WAY better skyline than it's Tokyo Neighbor.

The Pacifico Hotel is a nice touch, and adds a feeling of internationally recognized architecture for those familiar with the similar nine-star hotel in Dubai.  Yokohama also does way better in the "public green spaces" department.  I think they totally redesigned the city after the war, whereas Tokyo stubbornly rebuilt itself exactly as it was.

Yokohama purportedly has the worlds biggest Chinatown, but it's definitely smaller the the one in NYC, so I'm not sure about that statistic.  What I am sure of is that this is NOTHING like the Chinatowns that we think of.  It's expensive, organized, clean, and... well, probably very Japanese.

But didn't get it totally wrong.  Mmmmm...

Hahaha!!  One of the funniest museums I've ever been to is the Ramen Museum in Yokohama!  It's not really a museum in that it has any information.  It's more of a moment captured in time.  The Japanese are very fond of post-war Japan for some reason.  It was probably a hellish time to live in, but it also was a lot more simple, and was about the time they started to let go of a lot of their culture in favor of Westernization.  This is a fake set of streets set in Tokyo's 1950's.  It has all the usual shops, and 8 of Japan's most famous Ramen shops.  What do you do there?  Eat ramen.  That's all.  Yokohama residents get yearly passes so they can come here normally, as they would any ramen shop on a side street.

Cool modern sculpture behind a street performance.