Yokohama 横浜市

Wednesday and Thursday of this week we took a train trip to the Tokyo and Yokohama area with the first stop being the Minato Mirai 21 area of Yokohama. Yokohama is one of the major port cities for Japan and has a lot of history. We stayed at the Royal Park Hotel which is located in the Landmark Tower, at one time Japans tallest building. Our 56rd floor was really awesome and we had a great view of the city. While there, we visited the China town district, The Yokohama Maritime Museum, and several great shopping area's like Queens square and World Porters. Also across the street was the Cosmo World Amusement Center which is famous for its highly visible large Ferris Wheel. Due to the recent amount of Seismic activity we took a pass on the wheel. We did wake up one morning to a nice little roller which was easily felt on the 56th floor. Yokohama's Minato Mirai area is very new and very clean, as was most of the areas we visited around town. The are some decent restaurants, we visited the Hard Rock and Chandlers Seafood, a Seattle based chain. Overall this was a great place to visit except for day 1 when we had record high temperatures for the area which made moving around during the day a bit a chore.

お盆 Its time for Obon, which means a week off of work for us....

Obon is an annual Buddhist event for commemorating one's deceased ancestors. The Buddhist festival has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people from the big cities return to their home towns to relax, visit family, and clean their ancestors' graves. Traditionally it includes festivals, and it has existed in Japan for more than 500 years. The Obon week in mid August is one of Japan's three major holiday seasons, which in turn means a week off of work for many of us. It is probably also Japans busiest travel season, so this year due too late planning, Heather and I decided to keep things local.
We decided to spend our first few days relaxing in Utsunomiya but later next week we will travel to Yokohama and then spend a few days across the water in Central Tokyo, sightseeing, maybe looking for a good steak, hitting a few happy hours and generally being tourist.
The heat and humidity this week here in Utsunomiya has been the usual oppressive August fare, telling me it will probably be really nasty in the bigger cities farther south. We will do our best however to enjoy it and hopefully get a few good fotos to share here.