The fantastic weather has suddenly come to end. This is the view from our hotel window looking out over wet Yokohama.
A bit damp
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The Supermarket
//A visit to the supermarket is a fun experience with so many interesting things for sale and so much choice. Many of the fresh foods are ready packed and they always have a extensive range of ready to eat meals that are super cheap. If you can read any of the prices put a decimal space in front of the last two numbers and it will be just under the Australian price.. Eg 1000 works out around $11.00
And now the moment of truth…tasting and judgement
//There is so much food, with cafes and restaurants everywhere you look, and the food is fresh, clean and cheap. Our curry and beef dish were both around $7.00 and came with salad and soup and were delicious. There is rarely anything on a normal menu over $15 with entrees all around $3-$5 AU. Food is easy to order, the are pictures on many of the menus and outside the establishment there is often plastic food. Most places specalise in a type of food eg curry, noodles, seafood, so you have a good idea what to expect. There are plenty of coffee, pizza, burger, Italian and French places all with a Japanese twist and the bakeries and desert places are amazing.
Expensive food
//If you want to pay $50 for a punnet of strawberries, $200 for a rock melon or $10 for a banana- well Japan is the place. There are premium fruit and vegetable stalls selling incredibly expensive fruit and veg, but they are the most perfect items you could ever imagine, the melons are perfectly round and colour and markings exact, strawberries will all have the same number of seeds and so on. They wrapped, gift boxed then put in a exotic bag just as if you were buying a pair of shoes from Louis Vuitton or Cucci. The fruit is usually used as a gift and not for the person buying.
K Cars
//K Cars are tiny cars and delivery vans popular in Japan, most of them are smaller than our Ford KA and many of them are pretty cute. Although traffic is pretty light here compared to other places parking is difficult and many of the streets and lanes are pretty narrow so these cars make sense. There are also rules that you need parking if you want to own a normal size car.
So much choice
//It dosn’t matter what you are shopping for there is so much choice and you could spend all day comparing and getting confused just at the one store. These photos were taken at Toko Hands who sell household items and a lot of gifts, craft items and stationery. The departments are a little random and there really isn’t an Australian store to compare it with. All big stores are the same, the electrical stores have 4 rows of mice, 5 rows of recordable cds and 8 rows of USB sticks in every size, shape and colour.
Nissan HQ
//The Nissan Headquarters in on the walkway between our hotel and the main city center so we drop in for a look at their showroom. After the welcoming bows we explore some of their new products and a pretty impressive concept vehicle. We will see more next week when we visit the Tokyo Motor Show.
Shopping centre 5 star toilets
//Truly magical and it just in a shopping mall.. open door lid opens, close door lid closes and flushes no need to touch anything unless you want the wash and blow dry. And as for the rest of it, certainly 5 star with planter boxes and tiles you could eat your dinner off- if you are into eating your dinner of toilet floors.
Gran Open! Gran Open!
//A new shopping area opened in Yokohama Japan today and we were lucky enough to see the launch, and even got a free gift.
Both these videos are well worth the watch. The mascots are trains.
BTW the Gran is not a spelling mistake (our end anyway) they seem to use grand here without the d.
Pew! Kim Jong Un didn’t nuke us
//The airport was about a half hour taxi ride from hotel, and from the outside it was a pretty impressive airport, but like a lot of things we have seen in China things usually are not as beautiful up close, and Shanghai airport was no exception, very dated and only a Burger King and a dodgy noodle place as far as dining. Charging points didn’t work, and the plane was miles out on the field. Staff and security had no concept (in any language) and like everywhere there were 4 times the staff you needed. and they were all useless.
We survived the flight from Shanghai to Tokyo, crossing South Korea and Kim Jong’s missile testing ground with ease. The flight was fairly comfortable other than being at 1:00 AM and the Chinese customs stole all our portable batteries rendering them not safe to fly.. I dont now how they got from China in 5 days when I ordered them on eBay….It’s been a very long day but we hired some showers at the airport in Tokyo for about $10 best $10 ever before catching the bus to our first stop Yokohama.
Last night in Shanghai
//We finish our trip to Shanghai dodging the mopeds and the copy watch salesman down along Nanjing road checking out the video walls and neon light shows. Before heading to the airport for the 1:00 am flight to Tokyo.
German for lunch
//Not quite Chinese cuisine but this place is fun. Its a German restaurant that is located under the bund walkway. They have a real (and we think unused) Merc hanging off the wall. The food was good, so was the beer.
