Yokohama 横浜

Yesterday I went to Yokohama. I traveled around a bit, and have lots of pictures to share with you!

I went to see Sojiji, which is the head temple for the Soto Zen sect in Japan. Soto Zen focuses on gradual enlightenment though meditaion. The Rinzai sect, in contrast believes that sudden enlightenment is possible and tries to achieve this through koan, or riddles/puzzles. "What is the sound of one hand clapping" is a famous one.


















































Near a small wooded area, I saw a woman who brought food for some feral cats. Of course, I took pictures.
You can see the short and bent tails on these cats. That is quite common among cats in Japan, and is the origin of the Japanese Bobtail breed. These guys were cute, not to skittish, but definitely made me want to take them to a vet to get cleaned up a bit.














I then went to Yokohama's Chinatown, which is the largest in the world. The first shop I saw could be any New Age shop anywhere. They even sold dreamcatchers!

A lot of shops had panda themes.

Here is a Chinese gate in Chinatown. There are several in Chinatown.






This is the smallest and most specialized bar I'vee every seen. Apparently, they like to focus on doing only one thing -- serving Guinness. But they don't do it particularly well -- it wasn't staffed when I went by.




Here is why I went to Yokohama in the first place: Beer.

There was a beer festival in Yokohama. Earlier in the year, there had been one in Tokyo and Osaka. It is organized by the Japanese Craft Beer Association. For an entrance fee of Y4100, you get a 50 ml glass and are free to sample the over 120 beers offered.

I tried Japanese craft beers, a Tahitian beer, Belgian Abbey beer and a Palestinian beer. But my favorite was the sweet vanila stout. If you like the idea of Guiness floats or Guinness cheesecake, you'd like this.
Here is a line of folks waiting to get in.










This is inside Osambashi Terminal, where the festival was held. As befits a building on the end of a pier that serves as a terminal for passenger ferries, it had a nice nautical design.

Here are happy samplers.










These folks are taking a food break.









Here is the ham on a stick that I had.









Yokohama has some interesting old architecture. This building is nicknamed "King Tower", because the top looks like a king's had on playing cards. Sailors could recognize Yokohama port by these towers. It was really the prefectural office.

It was destroyed in the Kanto Earthquake in 1923 and rebuilt in 1928.

I think it's beautiful. I love weathered copper!













This next building is "Jack Tower". It's the Port Opening Memorial Hall.

There is also a "Queen Tower", but I wasn't particularly looking for these when I found them. I asked a man at King what the building was, because I liked it so much. He also pointed "Jack" out to me.

Here you can see all three towers-- I've marked them. They are in order, left to right, King, Jack and Queen. Queen was a customs house. Since it was a national building, it was designed to be taller than King, which was only a prefectural building.

I left Yokohama at 18:17 and didn't get back to Karasuyama until after 23:30. But I didn't take the shink. I will definitely go back to Yokohama.