Amy : Yokohama

We made a trip to Yokohama today to do some sightseeing and shopping. After two full days of travelling, today was our day to rest. Our first stop was to the Sky Garden located on the 69th floor of The Landmark Tower. Here we could see views of downtown Yokohama. From every view point, all we could see were houses and buildings. For me, having grown up in Toronto and visited the CNTower multiple times, the views are not particularly new. But today was the first time that the thought came to my mind : if 99% of Japanese people don`t know Christ then very nearly every person I am seeing from this viewpoint is living in darkness.

At the bottom of the tower there are restaurants and a mall full of shops. We ate at a ramen shop which was very tastey. Afterwards we spent a couple of hours shopping. I visited the stores that were unique to Japan - stores such as the Pokemon Store, Studio Ghibli and Snoopy Town. The Pokemon store was packed full of kids. I was completely shocked. I`m not sure if there was a special offer happening or if something had just been released but it was crazy. Little kids were pushing me around in the store. The line up was wrapping around a couple of times. Kids were standing in line and purchasing 5000Y or more of Pokemon memorabilia. I know that Pokemon was popular years ago but I was surprised to see that on this particular Saturday afternoon, the store was packed full of kids.

Our train ride home was extremely crowded. There are fireworks tonight a couple of blocks from the condo where we are staying. It felt like everyone in Yokohama was following us home! We were packed like sardines into the train. We also noticed that there were quite a few people wearing traditional kimonos. It was definitely an experience and one that the team shared laughs over.


Here's a short YouTube video of our trip on the train: