Yokohama.

The last time I came to Tokyo, I didn’t really bother with visiting places outside of Tokyo (with the exception of Gotemba). But this time round I made it a point to include Yokohama in my itinerary because I really want to see more of Japan than just Tokyo. It turned out to be a brilliant choice.

I started the day with a visit to Marinos Town, the training centre of the J-League team Yokohama F Marinos. For a training facility it was really big and I think nowhere in Hong Kong is even comparable to standards like these. There were 4 pitches, 2 with natural grass and the other 2 with artificial grass, and they all look beautiful.

After that, I headed out to Chukagai, or Chinatown, for a walkabout. For me, it really doesn’t feel very Chinese. In fact, it felt more like a Japanese town selling localized Chinese food. But then again, the market that the Chinatown was catered to was Japanese anyway. Apparently this Chinatown is one of the biggest in Japan, though I have a gut feeling that I might find more Chinese people in Ikebukuro here in Tokyo than Yokohama itself.

Took a train over to Shin-Yokohama after Chinatown for a visit to the Nissan Stadium, homeground of Yokohama F Marinos. I was lucky enough to have caught the stadium tour, and the best part of it was that I was the only one on the tour, so I basically had the whole tour guide to myself. Mr. Shirai, the tour guide, was a very friendly man, and he also helped me take a lot of interesting pictures. The tour itself was really great too, as I got to see a lot of wonderful things, such as the actualy dressing room for the World Cup winning Brazilian team, the seats for the bench, etc. It was 500 yen well spent.

Met up with my friends for dinner, and had a good chat as well as some nice photo taking session at Minatomirai, before adjourning back to Shinjuku.

I’m catching the Hong Kong-Japan game tomorrow, and while I know it would be quite impossible for Hong Kong to come away with a win, I sure hope that they do themselves justice. And who knows, since stranger things have happened, you’ll never know how the match is going to be!