I was pretty eager to head out beyond the boundaries of Tokyo whilst we were there. Don't get me wrong - Tokyo is breathtaking. It's just that I was very much for the idea of exploring Japan as a whole, hence we wound up exploring Yokohama as well.
Just for some background information, Yokohama is the second largest city outside of Tokyo. We didn't have that much time to explore as much as we would have liked, but it was worth a shot all the same. We didn't manage to hit the mark on seeing all that Yokohama had to offer but here was what we managed to do on our day trip there.
(Mandy Note: Please pardon the atrocious looking nails ): )
We visited Cosmo World - a theme park with some attractions that included a ferris wheel, rides and neoprints. It's a pretty alright park, perhaps more thrilling for those who dare to take the crazy rides. We didn't try for the ferris wheel was intimidating enough for me(Brendy Trivia: I have a pretty terrible phobia of height).
Oh and their neoprints are so advanced by the way, do spam them when you're there! I mean, they even do makeup for you on the photos. Photoshop is nothing to the Japanese.
We also had some fantastic ice cream with bear cakes on the top. It was awesome to say the least.
(Mandy note: I hadn't had a drop of ice cream in the whole year but I broke that cycle with a cone at Cosmo World. I must say that it was really yummy. I polished off the whole thing. No kidding. It wasn't creamy and rich like everything I didn't like about ice-cream, but light and tasty like the kind of ice cream that you'd keep eating. Gotta love them Japanese dessert geniuses)
We hopped on to multiple trains just to get to this aquarium called Hakkejima Sea Paradise. It was rather out of the way, and not to mention somewhat disappointingly bare in our opinion. Granted it was big and spacious but animals-wise, it was not too exciting.
If you happen to be on a tight schedule I would advise that you skip this.
One reward we did get from travelling this far however, was the spectacular view of the slightly greener side of Japan. Any more green and Mandy would have dragged me back to the city.
The locals have this talent for looking so polished and casual at the same time. Teach us your ways please.
Japanese chubby babies are the best!
They had cute Japanese trains to take guests all around.
Apparently the aquarium boasts of this huge, ancient relic of a fish that is pre-historic. We ended up just giggling at how silly it looked. It is however the size of possibly 3 grown men (I'm talking stocky 1.8m men) so perhaps if we were in the water there will be less to laugh about.
We played quite a bit with these friendly dolphins and their trainers. Their skin was incredibly soft too.
There's this cartoon called Siro-tan that's widely sold in Japan and we managed to snag a few of these adorable babies in Sea World too. They even had some dressed up as marine creatures. How can anyone resist these?
We also bumped into these adorable pups along the way. I love how their tongues stick out. Maybe I just love silly things in general.
On our way back, at one of the transit stations, while looking to settle somewhere for dinner, we chanced upon this phenomenal food place.
By this I mean highly afforadable food with insane standards. Our meal was about 1400 yen in total, which is roughly $20 SGD, for the both of us! It included chicken-omelette rice, hot soba and traditional mochi with some soy bean powder peppered on the top. Usually the first dish would make me feel nauseous when I eat it here in Singapore, but it was incredibly fragrant when I had it there. The hot soba was light and flavourful too. The best however, was definitely the dessert. It literally melts in the mouth. Thinking about it makes me still makes me hungry,even after so many months.
We realised later that the restaurant was so popular to the point that they were accepting big scale reservations. Talk about some food luck right there.
We're sorry to say that we unfortunately cannot read Japanese, but here's the signboard all the same in case you would like to try it.
Again it's somewhat out of the way as it was a small transit station, and Japan's stations have this knack of serving the best food around so don't fret if you can't find it. Good food is everywhere in Japan, this isn't something you have to die to try but it's still worth the effort if you were to go all the same. We hope you guys enjoy that last few days of Christmas and this year and we will see you really soon for the next update!
Love,
Brendy
