Sunday, 30 August 2020

Japan Journeys: Yokohama

Disclaimer: There is a currently a travel advisory issued against all non-essential travel due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Government of Canada and the State Department have advised all Canadians and Americans to avoid all non-essential travel due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak. In addition, all major cruise lines have suspended operations around the world until the end of October. I am not promoting any travel during this time. I am just sharing my past travels and continuing to work on my blog while we are all staying at home, practicing social distancing. If you are reading this, stay safe and healthy out there. Take care of yourself and each other. 

Yokohama was our last port. While we knew that Tokyo was just a short bullet train ride away, we decided against going into the city for a number of reasons. First, we just wanted a slow, relaxing day. Secondly, it is always a risk to take the train into the city on your own so we decided to play it safe. Lastly, it was also my birthday and I just wanted to eat food I love and go to a cat cafe!

We awoke to a cloudy day in Yokohama. Our plan was to visit the Yokohama Cup Noodle Museum first. It wasn't too far from the port, but sadly, we arrived to find it closed! We should have checked online before going there because it turns out it's closed on Thursdays. It started to sprinkle, so we headed to a nearby mall complex for some cover. I did some light shopping and decided to have lunch at a sushi restaurant in the mall. It had exceptional reviews and we were very pleased with the sushi (some pictured below!). It was also early so we were the only customers in the restaurant. I also treated myself to a mango soft serve.

Afterwards, we walked to the Chinatown area in search of the cat cafe I had found online. It started raining again, so we ducked in and out of the stores along the main strip. The cat cafe was just a 5 minute walk outside of the Chinatown area, tucked away on above a Familymart of an unassuming residential area. We were there for an hour petting kitties (and missing our own who was back at home).

Since we had lunch early, we were hungry again. We found a chain yakitori restaurant, Torikizoku, for happy hour. This restaurant was the first smoking restaurant we came upon in Japan. The food was great, but the experience wasn't so pleasant.

When we left the restaurant, it was dark, but we wanted to do a little more shopping. We shopped at a local grocery store, and at Donquijote a little further away from the area. There was also a few restaurants at the strip mall, so I decided to get myself a little fluffy pancake dessert as a birthday cake to celebrate.

It was time to leave and it was starting to sprinkle again so we took the taxi back to the port as it was getting late and rainy. What a day!

Sadly, our journey to Japan was over. Little did we know this taste of Japan would bring us back a few months later... but let's stay in the moment! Our cruise was not over yet, we still had two more sea days before we returned to Shanghai. Stay tuned!