Honey & Clover And Minato Mirai

As I wrote in my previous post…

I was inspired to go to Yokohama Minato Mirai after watching Japanese Drama, Honey & Clover.

So that, I posted some scene from the drama that shows Shinbashi International Pier with Minato Mirai as its background.. Mostly in the noon..

thx..^_^

Yokohama Trip – Part I

Yokohama!!

One of my most favorite places I want to visit in Japan. It is a city next to Tokyo; you can reach the heart of the city, Yokohama Station, around half hours from Tokyo station. It is a city full of industrial area yet rich in traditional and modern heritage. I love this city.

This Saturday, I went to several place in Yokohama which are Yokohama China Town, Shinbashi (international sea port), and Minato Mirai 21 area. I went to these places with Indonesian YSEP friend, Lyta (Master 2 – Material Engineering), and Teddy (Master 2 – Nuclear Engineering), a friend from Tokodai. It was a really amazing trip. It serves a very beautiful moment in my stay in Japan.

The first time, we gathered at Aobadai station at 1.30 PM. And then we used train to Motomachi-Chūkagai Station, the nearest station to the Yokohama China Town. It took 47 minnutes to reach the China Town.

The first time we arrived at the station, we saw a beautiful painting on the station’s wall. We could see many pictures about historical scene of Yokohama such as the sea port and European style building before world war era. And then we get out from the station and reached the china town. The Yokohama China Town is the biggest china town in Japan, and one of the biggest in the world (Wikipedia). There were a lot of peoples in the area since it was a holiday. The place serves many shop selling Chinese food, Chinese dress, or many beautiful accessories made from natural rock and wood. After seeing several shop, we went to area’s park and saw a Chinese Lion & Dragon Dance (Indonesia : Barongsai). We were very lucky because at the time there were Lion & dragon Dance performed by local authority. The players were students from junior/senior high school in the area. That was my first time seeing a lion dance live. I was very amazed; the movements of the dancers were very smooth and agile. After seeing that, we explore the area, saw many interesting shop and saw a beautiful Buddhist temple.

At some part of the area, there was a road which every side of it was filled with of Chinese restaurant. From the most expensive one to the average one, the restaurants serves original Chinese taste (mostly pork T_T, and Peking duck) with amazing Chinese building’s architectural look. If you are an architect, you might want to visit this place to broaden your knowledge about traditional Chinese architecture.

After exploring the area and taking several photos (actually, many photos ;p), we went to Yamashita Kouen (kouen = Park). It is a park located near Minato Mirai area. But, before went to the park, I was feeling very hungry so I went to 7-11 convenient store to buy Onigiri and bread to fill my stomach. It was the most reasonable food, it only cost 350 yen to bough 2 Tuna onigiri & 1 big chocolate bread compared to eat at restaurant and spend more than 1000 yen for singles set of menus. Furthermore I could not eat most of food in those restaurants, it contains pork and meat.

And so we arrived at Yamashita Park. It is a big park, located next to the sea. From this place, we could see beautiful scenery of the sea to the east and beautiful European & modern style building to the west. This place also has a boat museum. I am not sure what it is, maybe some kind of museum inside an old boat. We have to pay to get inside. We took many pictures with background of Minato Mirai area. I will tell you about Minato Mirai latter.

After taking Maghrib Pray in the park, we went to Shinbasi, an international Sea port to the north of the park. On the way to Shinbashi, we saw a magical street performance performed by Japanese. It was not really amazing magical trick, but the magician was sure very funny and attractive. If I had more money, I want to give couple of yen for the magician ^_^

Well, that concludes the first part of this post. Since I have reach more than 700 words, lets divide it into two posts.. the other half will tell you about interesting things in Shinbashi pier and Minato Mirai Area… see you… ^.^