Visiting Yokohama 🇯🇵 Chinatown and German festival
well good morning from the warm sea of Tokyo today I’m leaving the city of Tokyo heading down south to the city of Yokohama we’re going to check out this port city i’ve been there for a very short time before just a stop over so I want to go down and check it out chinatown there is supposed to be very popular and pretty cool i think it’s the biggest Chinatown in Japan the port will be nice so let’s head on down there get a beer and walk around get a beer not yet it’s not even 8:00 yet but you know what I mean when I’m walking around there let’s go what a start i just got to Yokohama station and I got lost coming out of it already i come out the completely wrong side now I found the way though it’s okay sun is beaming down not a cloud in sight i need to get me hot soon but there’s a lot of shade at the moment at the train station so I’m okay for the first few minutes of this walk see blue skies everywhere now I could have used my pass to get a little small subway line closer to where I want to go like down to the um harbor but I mean it’s 20 to 10 in the morning the sun is shining might as well just walk around it takes about 3/4 of an hour to get there uh but what’s 3/4 of an hour like when the weather is good I have to take advantage of it especially after that rain yesterday i don’t think I’ll be complaining about sunshine for the next while i will complain about it again eventually but I won’t complain about it for the next few days at least that’s a promise [Applause] so in case it gets too windy down at the harbor area I might as well tell you a little bit about Yokohama now so before the Maji restoration in the 60s 1860s should I say not just the 60s uh Yokohama was only a very very small rural fishing village so there’s only about 600 people living here and uh its main objective was to supply the growing city of Tokyo with fish but after the major restoration began in the 1860s they opened the first international trading port here down at the at the harbor and as a result of that Yokohama just bmed absolutely boomed and it started a lot of trends in Japan so it was the first place to have an English language newspaper it was the first place to have European style sports venues the first Chinatown in Japan the first foreign uh trading warehouse and pub in Japan and it was very very badly damaged many times um by bombings during World War II by the Alloys but every time it got damaged they just kept rebuilding it and rebuilding it and now it’s one of Japan’s biggest cities so it goes to show you that even when you’re down you’re not out and over the years actually it’s been affected many times by big major earthquakes but even so it’s become one of the industrial hubs in Japan and one of the biggest tech hubs in Japan a lot of huge companies have their uh headquarters here the Japanese headquarters you can see there’s a lot of like uh industrial or financial buildings around also have a ferris wheel that I won’t be going on but yeah um it’s very interesting history of the city it just goes to show you like the fact that there were 600 people here basically living here before the major era and then just the opening of that uh international trading port and everything just blew up things can happen very fast in cities and countries sometimes good sometimes bad [Music] must be some kind of fun fair at least I don’t have to look at me watch for the time 9:57 okay so where am I i’m here there’s a park here called Hammerhead Park that I want to check out i don’t know if it’s something to do with sharks or not it’s probably got nothing to do with sharks but I’m going to go to it anyway it’s only around the corner now unfortunately Hammerhead Park is not a park it’s the area for the um ferry terminal but there is this flower garden that looks nice up ahead might take a walk through there this looks like more of a garden unfortunately I can’t walk down here which is a shame it’s very nice though isn’t it all the flowers along the side man the weather today honestly you would think being down at the harbor it’d be windy but not at the moment very very little breeze i think there was more breeze when I left the bloody hostel this morning it’s beaming down let’s go and check out the red brick warehouse there’s old walls here that have been broken and I don’t really know what used to stand here obviously a building of some sorts could have been an old warehouse now there’s nothing overly significant about the red brick warehouses apart from the fact that they were temporarily built here although they lasted a bit longer than they were intended to last uh they were used to store unprocessed foreign goods that were brought into Yokohama port and mostly the area itself served as an event space so you’ve got all these events down here here so this event that I’ve stumbled across here at the Red Brick Warehouse is actually Yokohama Fuelings Fest so we’ve got a German festival now here’s the prices of all the beers they’re Well for a festival it’s not that bad like you get a mass for [Music] €8 i know at home you’d be paying about 15 for that and in Germany I used to get them for about €8 so that’s pretty reasonable prices actually I must say but the whole area snack wagon kazar kitchen German beers so it’s just spring festival furlings fest pretzels sausages everything you’d associate with Germany all the different beers well the hat had to go on there’s nothing I could do about it it’s too warm but you know what I like about Yokohama it’s very green even you might not be able to actually see it but over here is the main uh ferry terminal behind this big building this over here and on top of it there’s a pathway and a park and there’s people running around it doing laps of it jogging so even putting the green spaces on top of buildings which really is what more places should do it’s a waste of space isn’t it you know usually it’s just a big slab of concrete on top of nothing and out of sight whereas if you’ve got something like that it just makes the place look that little bit better doesn’t it anyway I’ll stop rambling on um funny enough when I planned I said we’d grab a beer when we’re here but I didn’t know that German Fest was on so I will grab a beer there when it’s open doesn’t open really until 11:00 which is still very early for a beer but look when in Japan do what the Germans do look at this cool little building up here also very green it’s cool in there also got a little van selling stuff little purple van now can I go this way that’s the question just want to go to the walkway at the park pretty sure I can yeah it’s this way if I remember correctly so I think what I’ve stumbled upon now I’m not 100% sure but it could be the Yokohama Marathon it’s very possible it seems like all the roads are closed off and it’s kind of I don’t know if there is a lot of people running but they seem to be running slow or else it’s a charity run maybe some special run maybe not a marathon but uh interesting and everyone’s queued up at the side of the road like uh watching as if their family maybe are running in it so not 100% sure but that’s what my guess is we’re almost at the park the park is just on the other side of this bill just because we’re animals here now don’t worry i did get some food as well i’m not drinking this on an empty stomach i got a honey butter bun some sweet thing that they’re doing this daily Yamuzaki it’s a convenience store that I’ve never actually went into before but apparently they’re very famous for their bakery so that’s why I got this they had loads of other things that look great but I kind of wanted something sweet don’t know why just did well I just took the first bite into this and it is not what I expected i thought it was just like a what would you call it like a dense bone that was sweet or honey flavor but it’s not there’s actually an opening in it with honey inside it pleasantly surprised cuz I do love honey but I just thought it would be flavored with honey i didn’t think there would be like decent amount of honey put into it so it’s a 9 out of 10 for me i just wish it was a bit crispy on the outside you know well I’ve arrived at the little pier that I wanted to walk down it’s a little nice well little nice a nice little walk now it doesn’t lead you to much but I say it doesn’t lead you to much on occasion but on the pier further up I see these kind of gazeos so I’m wondering if there is a fair on i’ll walk to it anyway and check it out um it’s not it’s going to be at the end of the pier so when I go there and finish up looking at that we’d head over to the biggest Chinatown in Japan let’s have a little look out on the bay while drinking our strong zero at 20 to 11 in the morning there is no need to fear though i am not starting off my day drinking strong zero i did have a bottle of um iced latte so I have got me my me little morning kick and that bone i tell you as I said I was never in that um daily yam yamuzaki before but uh in the bakery section they have these little bento boxes so they got like um oh there was two oniri in it there was a couple of sausages there was some fried chicken there was some rice um and some uh pickled cabbage so in this little plastic box it was only 45 yen or something like that which is 250 that’s a lot of value for money really that’s a lunch big lunch cuz the two only giri fill you up sticky rice you know that kind of stuff is very filling lemon Squash Cafe oh that’s Yokohama Tower a nice atmosphere when you’re walking along here especially when it’s a Saturday you’ve got more people out and about actually not as many people as I was expecting i thought Saturday combined with golden week i just thought it was a recipe for disaster and I was saying “Oh now Chinatown certainly could be packed.” More than likely it will because of even walking along I can hear people speaking Chinese so I bet you they’re all either going or coming from Chinatown but you see what I mean and it is pretty nice laidback now once you go into the street that direction it becomes basically like Tokyo it is the financial center it’s nice and green when I stopped off here last time I was in Tokyo as I said I wasn’t here for very long i was only here for a few minutes really but it wasn’t green at all apart from the grass there was nothing know the trees were bigger now with a bloody all green it’s amazing how quickly it can change nice little fountain over here anyway I’m going to check out and see if there is an event on at the end of the pier so it’s in fact not a car show this time not that I saw the car show last time but I knew it was on it’s actually the meat festival of Yokohama well meat and wine but we walk along and check it out anyway might as well [Music] you can see all the little stalls selling all their different ice creams meats kebabs wagu everything uh not yet not yet i want to walk walk around for Okay hello hello five minutes 5 minutes not yet i want to walk around pasta it’s too early too early pasta breakfast time breakfast so they’ve got everything they’ve got pasta spaghetti well it is a type of pasta I suppose um but they’ve got that all on display now i’m not getting any cuz it’s way too say it’s way too early for past i’m drinking a bloody alcohol now but you know it’s still breakfast time basically um but it’s kind of the first time in Japan that the people have been kind of pushy you know they’re like “Oh come on try yeah come on you need come and buy this.” That doesn’t usually happen in Japan at least from what I’ve experienced you know i know it’s their job you know that’s their job is to get customers to come in but at the same time I wasn’t expecting it in Japan you can see them all it’s kind of small but it was worth just walking to we’re going to head over to the um main area now to Chinatown just wanted to divert over here while I was coming [Applause] along it’s pretty cool isn’t it great atmosphere here and what I remember to tell you um the event that’s on it’s not the marathon it’s uh the triathlon the Yokohama triathlon which is on for two days today and tomorrow so uh that’s what’s blocking up the streets [Music] well we’re about to enter Chinatown i found the entrance it is absolutely crowded in Chinatown i was right my prediction of course a lot of the food around Chinatown is bow buns just steamed buns filled with meat or vegetables or both um that’s very very popular here and in China obviously we’ve also got skewers of all sorts of things these bones custard bones seafood bones sesame balls pork pies more bones as I said most of the things are steamed bones it’s very popular it’s a quick snack um in China like they’ve got the uh duck inside the bones with soy sauce or soy ducky sauce got bubble tea which is more Taiwan not really China but you know it’s a Taiwanese thing not a mainland China thing although I’ve often drank it in mainland China dumplings soup soups and fried chicken very popular as well let’s walk let’s stay on the busy street front of this building is pretty nice though more steamed dumplings so the thing I love about in China is the street food is incredible and the prices are also incredible even compared to Japan now I say Japan is very good uh value for money China as well uh it’s crazy more bubble tea and if you look at the pictures I don’t know if you can see it the bubbles are basically just bursting out the top i guess you get an awful lot of tapioca in it uh candied fruit on a stick also very popular and the fried squid fried squid is very tasty especially when they put like a chili seasoning on it absolutely lovely but a lot of the stuff that they’re selling around here is the bow bones the steamed bones uh dumplings dumpling soup wonton noodles as well nice building isn’t it it’s a restaurant but it’s pretty nice now the deep fried whole squid here is 800 yen so about uh basically €5 exactly now when I was in China and they’re selling that you get that for like €1 and the quality is pretty good you know still it’s still fresh food i think people have the notion like oh China you know the street food might be a bit but no it’s really good this looks nice down here doesn’t it fruit tea i forgot to change the settings 25 frames per second to stop the um lights flickering but you’ve got these buns as well with the stuffing inside them so you get fish eel pork these cool little hedgehog buns bubble tea i don’t know what that is but it looks pretty interesting portraits everything chili sauce a shrimp set look at that less than €10 and you get a whole platter of food it’s crazy isn’t it got €9 for that yeah so um squid on a skewer is very popular but what I haven’t seen here and that I did see in China all the time was pork on a skewer and a lot of it for very very cheap price i think pork is the most cheap meat that they have in China even cheaper than chicken not quite sure why i thought chicken would be a bit cheaper but not from my experience so this is Chinatown palm reading of course and the pigeons come along better not on me head although it’s good luck isn’t it and then of course the souvenir stalls more candied fruit as well candied grapes candy strawberries ice cream funny enough I never had ice cream in China it was never hot enough i went in November still warm but it wasn’t ice cream weather and then the rest of your souvenirs that you’ve got and that’s the end of this street we’ll go back and check out the other streets and um if there’s anything interesting I’ll show you if not we’ll head back to the uh October Fest well Frings Fest and you’ve got this temple as well here in Chinatown pretty nice isn’t it so that was a little look at Chinatown Japan’s biggest Chinatown here in Yokohama it’s quite interesting I have to say walking around all the food because having been in China you know the food that they sell is actually very similar usually when you go to places that are themed after a different country it’s very different than what the country itself really sells but haven’t been in China I can honestly say the food here is basically the same that they’re selling in Chinatown so I’m thinking we should head back to Furlings Fest and probably get ourselves a little beer and find a toilet actually as usual I need to go good thing Japan has a lot of them around so we’re going to head now around the corner to the Furlings Fest Spring Festival i’m going to see if they actually have got mass beers uh one liter beers of uh beer from Hoffry House uh Min uh Munich’s uh beer hall because I have a sneaky suspicion that they don’t actually have liters of them because I don’t know I don’t think Japanese people would drink that much beer at least um at least not in the time that it would stay fresh i’m not sure if they just have it from that company and they just give it to you in a small uh glass or a plastic uh cup i haven’t seen anybody walking around with anything except the plastic cup here but anyway look I’m going to I’m going to check it out and see they are charging premium for that one um as I said earlier it’s about €8 so um going to check it out and just see if they have it if not I’ll just get a beer anyway it doesn’t matter but I do like the beer from them and then at the same time I’m not sure if it’s genuinely from them or you know it’s just a Japanese company kind of doing it for them [Music] i try to survive [Music] it’s pretty cool isn’t it unfortunately I was right about the beer sizes small well it’s 450 mil so I call that small but look I’m going to enjoy it anyway i got chrome backer no I didn’t no no no no no um I went to the stall beside it uh so I got Airinger and I do like Airinger lovely beer nice and cold on this bloody scorching hot day tell you if it wasn’t for all the Japanese people I’d think I was in Germany except for at least this time I don’t have to pay a bloody deposit on my cup it’s pain in the ass anyway that was a little view of Yokohama today actually got a little bit done was unplanned most of it like until this morning but glad I came along catch it in the next video close it
I knew I was going to visit Chinatown in yokohama today, but I had no idea that there was a German themed festival on!
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