This is going to be a relatively short post even though it was a relatively long day as we arrived in Yokohama and headed for Tokyo.
You've got to love the warning signs you find randomly, like this one on the ramp outside the terminal.
We had decided we were going to make our way to Akihabara, the electronics center of Tokyo, via the subway and train, by ourselves. We thought we knew where we were going but eventually realized we'd missed a turn somewhere and had walked a lot further than we needed to to get to the subway.
Luckily for us it was a pretty walk for the most part there in Yokohama, nice flowers,
interesting people to see,
and a nice view of Serenade.
Yokohama has a ferris wheel right in the middle of the city, as well as a roller coaster.
Looking down I found this pretty Port of Yokohama tile, and that in this city ,the fire hydrants are under the sidewalk.
We even passed the Cup of Noodles Museum, who knew there was such a thing. There were a lot of people going in there.
When we got to the Metro we were pretty clueless, thinking we just had to buy a ticket and get on, that's what you do in New York. Not quite as simple in Tokyo, you need to look on the wall to see what the fare is for where you want to go. No wonder our tickets wouldn't let us out the gates when we slid them in the ticket taker when we got off! And we actually didn't understand why until three days later! Thankfully the guy selling tickets got tired of watching us try to get through and just waved us on through his office. When we went to get train tickets we decided it would be best to buy one from an actual person, except when we went to the office the man there directed us to the ticket machines. We tried to figure it out but after standing around looking like idiots for a few minutes the information man came out of his office and helped us buy the tickets. At this point I knew it was time to put the Suica Transit App on our phones like Holden had told us to do in the first place, that way you just put your phone on a spot at the gate and it magically opens for you. Lesson learned!
So after two hours of walking and riding trains we finally arrived at Tokyo's electronics and anime neighborhood, Akihabara. It was really unfortunate that I am totally clueless when it comes to anime. Definitely needed some grandkids here with us!
And the massive electronics stores were everywhere around us. Every floor was like it's own little store, maybe one would all be toys, one was computers and printers, another might be phones and accessories. There was so much of it that it was absolutely overwhelming when you saw 3,000 kinds of phone cases, 200 phone chargers, 352 kinds of ear buds, along with 436 kinds of headphones, and on it went. And that was just one store!
Karl was looking for some more external memory for his videos, a portable phone charger, and two inflatable sumo wrestler suits. Don't ask about that last one, I'm still not sure why he wanted to have those to entertain passengers on the ship.
Since it was a Saturday afternoon this was a hopping place. We tried looking for a Japanese restaurant for some lunch but with no success. Then we hit that wall where you just need a place to sit down for a few minutes and eat something. Enter KFC, not exactly iconic Tokyo but Karl got something to eat on the first floor then we went to the second to sit down. I hadn't felt good the night before so didn't dare eat anything but the three crackers I'd brought with me from the ship, along with a Coke. Karl tried a teriyaki chicken burger along with his original recipe and said it was pretty good. What was really interesting was how quiet it was as we ate, lots of young people at the other tables but nothing boisterous, just quiet speech or nothing at all. It was kind of eerie if I'm honest, but it was so good to sit down and have a place to use the bathroom.
On we went again in search of the sumo suits when we passed a store with these crazy varieties of KitKat bars, tons of green tea flavor. And no, I didn't buy any but I did later get a regular Japanese KitKat, and I must say they are quite excellent, KitKat connoisseur that I am.
And then we saw this group on a Mario Kart tour through the streets of Tokyo, something I'd heard of but Karl hadn't. He immediately wanted to find a way to do one but unfortunately you needed an international driver's permit, which neither of us had. We sure could envision the entire Hansen family driving down the streets in these some day!
We shopped until we were too overwhelmed and tired to do any more then headed back to Yokohama, this time with Suica on our phones. We saw this "Pie Mania" shop underground and I thought they looked good so bought a couple to take home to eat later.
This one was called Cherry Blossom, kind of like a popover with apple chunks inside and a cherry cream on top. It was pretty good.
All in all it was an interesting and tiring day, frustrating at times but good overall. Tokyo is definitely not a city you can do in just a day or even two, too much to see but it was good to see the bit that we did, definitely a cultural experience kind of day.
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