A few days ago hubby and I made the most of a national holiday and headed out for a relaxing day by the waterfront at Yokohama Bay. Our first stop was the Red Brick Warehouse for some breakfast.
Red Brick Warehouse - the larger one
The Red Brick Warehouse is a collection of two warehouses, over 100 years old, that are iconic landmarks of Yokohama. In the olden days Yokohama was a big port city and the Red Brick Warehouses were the customs buildings. Nowadays they are full of retail stores, bars, restaurants and a banquet hall.
The larger Red Brick Warehouse has a two storey balcony which is west
facing, making it a great place to relax with a drink and watch the
sunset :o).
West facing balconies for a sunset view
There is a large outdoor space in between the two buildings that is used
for festivals and events. It's where the New Year's Eve fireworks were,
if you ever saw my very first vlog ;o). On this particular day there
was a German Beer Garden Festival, as well as fun things for children to do. There are often bicycle rickshaws along the main road by the Red Brick Warehouse where you can pay to be driven around the surrounding area. It's a good way of giving your feet a rest whilst still taking in the sights. Many of the rickshaw owners don't speak much English but they have a map with the different routes and prices.
Bicycle Rickshaw
For breakfast we headed to Bills, an insanely popular Australian restaurant by the Chef Bill Granger. Such is it's popularity that it is common to have queues that are 2-3hrs long...I'm not kidding! We arrived for when it opened and still had to queue for 45mins! That's pretty good going when it comes to queuing at Bills.
Green Smoothie for me & Bill's Beets for hubby
My breakfast of scrambled eggs, avocado, halloumi and bread
Hubby's breakfast of sweetcorn & bell pepper fritters with halloumi and avocado salsa
The food is fantastic and very much the kind of food hubby and I enjoy with fresh fruit juices and smoothies, lots of light, healthy, nutritious and tasty food. You can see more in the video below.
After fueling our stomachs, we walked along the water front promenade to Osanbashi Pier as a cruise ship was coming in. Being the engineering geek that he is, my hubby loves watching the cruise ships come in to dock ;o).
Cruise ship coming into Osanbashi Pier
The views from the roof top garden of Osanbashi Pier are pretty impressive. You can see all of Minato Mirai 21 including iconic buildings such as Landmark Tower, Queens Towers A, B & C and Cosmo World Ferris Wheel, as well as the Red Brick Warehouse, Bay Bridge and Yokohama Marine Tower. You can walk along the water front promenade all the way to Yamashita Park.
Minato Mirai 21 skyline
Bay Bridge
Yokohama Marine Tower & Yamashita Park
On this particular day we spotted Mount Fuji in the distance. We had no idea that we could see Mount Fuji from Osanbashi Pier. As you'll see from the above video, I couldn't pick it up all that well on my vlogging camera, but at least you now know where to look, if you're ever at Osanbashi Pier :o).
Rooftop garden of OsanBashi Pier with cruise ships on either side
Osanbashi Pier & Bay Bridge in the background
The pier building itself has a very unique structure with an underlying nautical theme. Its different decks and layers are designed using floor boards and grass to resemble rolling waves. There are often events taking place at the pier and on this particular day there were several quirky food vans.
Quirky food van
Walking around the pier is free and a great way to relax in the sun. Hubby and I got an ice cream and sat in some chairs, soaking in the sun whilst being kept cool by the gentle bay breeze.
I hope you enjoyed this little tour around some of Yokohama's tourist attractions :o).
Happy New Yearto you all! I hope you all had an amazing new year's eve and ended 2014 on a high note. It was rather strange waking up this morning on January 1st 2015, whilst most of my family and friends were still in 2014, waiting for the clock to strike 12... the joy of living in different time zones ;o)
I spent quite a bit of time Googling yesterday trying to find out what happens in Yokohama on new year's eve but failed to find anything in English. I then resorted to searching on YouTube and saw that for the past couple of years there has been a firework display at the giant ferris wheel in Cosmo World (an amusement park). Hubby and I wrapped up warm and headed out just before 10pm, but as it got closer to 11pm the amusement park was strangely a lot quieter than one would expect on new year's eve, plus we couldn't see any signs of a firework display.
Luckily the lady at the information desk spoke a little English and we discovered that the fireworks had been moved down to the Red Brick Warehouse this year. So we headed to that part of town and it was crazy! There were so many people there that there was no doubt about us being in the right place.
As we made our way to the waterfront we were surprised to see rows and rows of people sat calmly on the floor waiting for midnight. There was a jolly atmosphere and people didn't seem to mind squeezing along to make room for others. There was no big countdown from 10 to midnight. One second we were stood looking at our clocks and the next thing we knew some people started shouting "5, 4, 3" and the rest of us joined in.
I'll be honest, the fireworks were not blow your socks off kind of amazing. Unlike the ones back home in London, or the ones we've been lucky enough to see in Sydney and Singapore. Nonetheless is was nice to mark the occasion. Once the fireworks were over, people calmly started to make their way back into town. It was whilst walking back that we saw one of the lanes on the main road come to a complete standstill as groups of young men lined the street with the boots of their cars open, displaying all their amplifiers and music systems. Crowds had gathered around the back of cars to watch people dancing and strutting their stuff... their was even some twerking going on ;o)
What surprised me in particular was that not a single car driver beeped their horn at these guys blocking the road or the scores of people that started dancing and gathering around, literally in the middle of the road. It was quite a sight. The Cosmo World amusement park was still open with people celebrating the arrival of 2015 on the various rides and roller coaster.
Hubby and I went out with our camera and captured a few short clips just so that we could share our first new year's eve in Japan with you all. I'll be honest the video does make me cringe a little as neither of us are comfortable in front of the camera (as you'll see) plus my editing isn't great. However, I'm determined to share this with you all, and hopefully some more short videos in the future. We get so many people asking us about Japan and what it's like to live here, that what better way to explain, than to show you :o)
Did you have a good new year's eve? How did you celebrate?
