drama in yokohama

it must be true, it rhymes!

It was quite dramatic as my experimental 'photo diary' entry will show. As an unrelated prefix, I'd like to share a funny story that happened in my kids class today. In a class of 7-9 year olds, we played a team game and they had to pick a team name. Now, most little whippersnappers this age pick something like 'stars,' or 'rainbows' or 'robots' or something, but one kid today chose 'mayonnaise.' Very strange and funny.

ANYWAYS, onto the real story.

On thursday I went to Yokohama, Japan's 2nd largest city, about an hour from Goi. I decided to take the bus rather then endure another boring train journey with sleepy businessmen and smelly foreigners.

me on the bus! no real point to this photo but adds to the continuity of the blog

First impressions of Yokohama werent great to be honest. You enter through the industrial area which is, like most industrial areas, quite dull, smelly and overbearing. I kind of have an interest in them though, its a completely different world in these areas and i think im a little fascinated by the unknown. Anyways, after leaving the bus and walking 5 mins into the station I realised that I had committed one of my bigger brain explosions in recent times. I had left my wallet on the bus. A minute of panic followed, with me desperately trying to figure out what to do. Luckily, Japan is the most honest country in the world and also the most helpful in a crisis. By chance the first bus offical person I spoke to spoke English and after half an hour my wallet was returned, contents unchanged. PHEW! (mental note...do NOOO do that again)

Things got significantly better after my stroke of good fortune. I went to Japan's tallest building and went on the worlds fastest lift. It is mighty quick. It went 70 odd floors (300m) in about 10 seconds. It even has a speedo in it! People were popping their ears when they got to the top, but iron ears bunting was too strong for that. Anyways, the view was impressive. Apparently u can see mt fuji from there on a clear day but I havent seen a clear day since I've left australia so i dont know about that. Oddly there is an aquarium up there too. Also, nearly all Japanese buildings have helipads on their roofs. Excessive safety or paranoia?

from Japan's tallest tower (duh!)


an example of Japan's suburban sprawl


all the japanese were going "nemo! nemo!"


proof i wasnt lying about the worlds fastest lift

Nextly (invented it...get over it) I moseyed into Chinatown which was more impressive than Sydney's chinatown, but less impressive than China itself (I'd imagine) There was the best temple I have seen in my short but thorough temple looking career. Very colourful.


an out of context but amusing picture

After I got tired here I decided to make the trek to a soccer stadium to watch the Yokohama Marinos v Celtic. I should note that this was a major reason I decided to come to Yokohama today. Sadly, it was an expensive waste of time. Celtic were more or less appalling and the stadium was way too big to hold the meagre crowd. Yokohama won 3-0. I dont think Celtic had a shot on target. I was dissapointed in Celtics lack of quality. Even though it wasnt that strong a team people like Neil Lennon, Alan Thompson, Shunsuke Nakamura and Stanislav Varga played but were shite. I was amazed at how many passes went astray and how poor their first touch was. Even in the warmup, their shooting was really poor. Anyway, I now hate celtic as they coerced me out of $50 with the lure of my first taste of European football.

i cant remember which picture i chose, presumably the one in which you can actually see something

Hmm...i had to hurry to get a train home in time. It wasnt the best trip home I could have hoped for. It ended up taking 2.5 hrs to get home which didnt please me the slightest. SO THERE! Drama in Yokohama. Decidedly undramatic actually.

In the future i will be....watching fireworks at some end of summer festival thingy tomorrow night, playing futsal sunday night....actually that's it.

much love and respect to you all.

p.s- im not doing something like this again.....far too much effort