Yokohama: A Seaside Jaunt to Historic Places in One of Japan's Oldest Ports

Friday, July 31, 2009

By MIHO INADA

Yokohama was just a small fishing village when U.S. Navy Commander Matthew C. Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay in 1853 with his four "black ships" -- so called because the coal-powered vessels spewed black smoke and were painted black. His arrival forcefully persuaded Japan to resume commerce with the rest of the world, which had been limited for two centuries to a few traders from China and the Netherlands.

In time, Yokohama became a major port where mostly foreigners lived and traded. Today, it is Japan's second-largest city after Tokyo, which is just 30 minutes away by train.

Packed within walking distance of the sea are Chinatown, the city's old cemetery, parks and a hot-springs spa as well as many posh shops and restaurants. Should you get tired along the way, you can hop into a taxi, or a Velo, an electric-powered passenger tricycle introduced in the city a couple of years ago.

Through September, the city is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the port's official opening in 1859, which will bring a host of special exhibitions and events -- including a performance by a 12-meter-tall, 37-ton mechanical spider created and operated by a group of French artists, as well as an open-air restaurant called Kurofune (Japanese for "black ship") that serves a "Yokohama port opening burger" and a "Black ship curry."

10 A.M. CHINATOWN
Enter Chinatown through its East Gate, across the street from exit 1 of the Motomachi Chukagai station along the Minatomirai subway line. Bear right when you reach a fork in the road and you should be on Chukagai Odori or Chinatown Main Street. Look for a koban on your right. These petite local police stations -- originally built as shelters for Tokyo's fledgling police corps in the 1880s -- are a common sight throughout Japan.

One block down Main Street, you reach Shatenki, a small restaurant on the right at the corner ( 81-45-641-0779; open 10 a.m. to 8:25 p.m. daily, closed Tuesdays). A half-century old, it isn't fancy and you might miss it altogether were it not for the long line of people outside. The shop's various kinds of Chinese rice porridge, or congee, made with a special stock that's boiled for hours with dried scallops and chicken bones, draw so many customers at lunchtime that the wait can be more than an hour.

Have a late breakfast here. You can choose to take your congee with a variety of ingredients, such as vegetables, seafood and meat, and one bowl costs between 685 yen and 945 yen (about $7 to $10). If you don't feel like a sit-down meal, there are plenty of food stands along Main Street, serving snacks such as roasted chestnuts and pork dumplings.

At the end of Main Street, make a U-turn when you hit another gate, called Zenrin Mon or the Zenrin Gate, and retrace your steps to the koban (police station).

At the koban, turn right at Nanmon Siruku Rodo (South Gate Silk Road), which is full of quirky stores. Make a stop at the modern-looking shop named Goku (it comes from the name of a monkey with magical powers in a Chinese folk story). Its English name is Monkey Magic Teahouse ( 81-45-651-7824; 30 Yamashita-cho; open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, closed Wednesdays.) Check out the Chinese tea sets as well as the variety of teas touted to improve your health.

One block down South Gate Silk Road on your left is the flashy eight-story Yokohama Daisekai Daska building, where you can have a Chinese fortune teller read your palm, or get a foot massage.

After you pass the building, you'll hit a fork in the road. Stay to the right -- you'll see a Chinese temple also on your right -- and walk on until you reach the South Gate.

12 P.M. MOTOMACHI
As you stand in front of South Gate, cross the street and then make your way over the Maeda Bridge, which sits under an elevated highway and over a river. At the second left, turn onto posh Motomachi. This street, filled with tasteful shops selling dresses, shoes, bags and housewares, is popular with elegant Yokohamans. While international luxury brands have boutiques on nearby streets within this shopping district -- also called Motomachi -- this particular road specializes in sophisticated Japanese designers. Check out Kitamura (2-95 Motomachi) for bags and Mihama (2-83 Motomachi) for shoes. And Ishii (1-28 Motomachi) carries beautiful Japanese pottery and lacquerware as well as woodblock prints. This shopping street originated in the Meiji era (1868-1912) as part of a leisurely walk for residents of the hillside area of Yokohama called Yamanote. They would walk down through the Motomachi district to the commercial area by the sea.

When you reach the Gap store on your right, make a right turn. The smell of freshly baked bread will soon waft over you. It's coming from Uchiki-pan, one of the oldest bakeries in Yokohama, opened in 1888 by a Japanese man who had learned how to bake British-style bread from an Englishman. The shop, still run by the same family, sells pastries, cakes and various kinds of bread, including French, sourdough and cinnamon-raisin.

12:30 P.M. YOKOHAMA FOREIGN GENERAL CEMETERY
After the bakery, head left at the fork in the road. It leads to the entrance of Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery, where about 4,800 gaijin (foreigners) from 40 countries rest. The first person buried here, in 1854, was a crew member on one of Commodore Perry's black ships, Robert Williams, who died on the journey from America. Many believe that Perry requested that Japan carve out land for a cemetery with an ocean view where Americans could be buried.

Many of those buried here contributed to the modernization of Japan in one way or another during the Meiji Restoration -- a revolutionary period beginning in the late 1860s that was marked by the downfall of the shogunate ("shogun" was the title given to the hereditary military commanders who ruled the country for 700 years) and feudalism and the creation of the modern state. For a small donation to support the maintenance of the cemetery, you can walk through the grounds between 12 p.m. and 4 p.m. Saturdays, Sundays and national holidays.

1P.M. HARBOUR VIEW PARK
Exit the cemetery and walk straight ahead on Yamatehondori Street, which is in front of the cemetery entrance, toward Harbour View Park. Stroll through the park, keeping the sea to your right. This area is called Mt. France; in the late 1800s and early 1900s the district was populated mostly by French expatriates. You can still see the remains of the French consular office, an old well and a windmill, all of which were demolished by the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923.

At the end of the park, go up the ramp to the left to get on the elevated promenade that will lead you to Yamashita Park. Stay to the right until you reach the Pauline Bridge. Just before the bridge is a small bronze statue of a baby doll. It was created to commemorate the 13,000 blue-eyed dolls sent by Americans to Japan in 1927 to promote good relations between the two countries.

1:30 P.M. YAMASHITA PARK
After crossing the Pauline Bridge you'll be in Yamashita Park, which was created in 1930 on landfill using debris from the Kanto earthquake.

To your left, moored next to the park, you'll see the luxury passenger and cargo ship Hikawa Maru. Japanese-built, it carried passengers across the Pacific from 1930 through 1941, and again in the 1950s. The ship's service, food and Art Deco interior charmed not only wealthy Japanese, including some members of the Imperial family, but also foreign celebrities such as actor Charlie Chaplin, who chose the Hikawa Maru for his Japan trip in 1932 so he could taste its renowned tempura. The ship is open daily except Mondays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is 200 yen (about $2.)

As you disembark from the ship, head right, with the sea on your right, and walk through the park. It's a nice stroll through flower gardens and past fountains. As you reach the edge of the greenery, you will see a convenience store called Happy Lawson.

2:30 P.M. OSANBASHI PIER
Take the stairwell to the left of the convenience store to get to the elevated promenade -- a walkway over a busy street. You should see the sea to your right.

As you walk along, keep your eyes open for a sign on your left for the Osanbashi Pier (the pier itself is on your right). Head down the steps toward the pier -- you'll have to make a U-turn when you reach ground level; the pier will be on your left.

The pier, built in the late 1880s, is Yokohama's oldest. But it was redesigned in the late 1990s and reopened in 2002, following a world-wide design contest that drew 660 submissions from 41 countries. The winners were Alejandro Zaera-Polo and Farshid Moussavi, an architect team operating in the U.K. The award-winning building is made of steel, wood and glass and includes a sleek rooftop plaza and "cruise" deck.

Inside the pier, head up to the wooden roof deck, which offers a great view of Yokohama with its skyscrapers and giant Ferris wheel, as well as the Yokohama Bay Bridge. When you've had your fill, head back down to the first floor and have a late lunch at Harbor's Cafe, which serves pasta, sandwiches, curry, salad and soup and offers a view of the sea, the Bay Bridge and Yamashita Park.

4P.M. JAPAN COAST GUARD EXHIBITION
Make your way back to the elevated promenade and walk straight ahead toward the Akarengasoko, or Red Brick Warehouse, now a retail complex. You can always hop in a taxi or Velo if you're tired.

Before exploring Akarengasoko, take some time to look at a North Korean spy ship on display in the seaside Japan Coast Guard facility behind Akarengasoko. (Free admission; open daily except Mondays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.)

The armed North Korean ship -- disguised as a fishing boat -- was cruising the East China Sea in December 2001 when it was discovered in Japanese waters by a Japanese Coast Guard patrol ship. A six-hour shootout ensued and the boat sank. A year later, the Japanese government salvaged it and it's now a permanent exhibit. The now-rusty vessel is riddled with holes, a testament to the gunfire exchanged. (None of the North Koreans on board, 15 all told, survived.) The exhibit includes a package of tobacco, a watch, canned foods and a pin bearing an image of the late North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, as well as guns and an electric switch for a self-destruct system bearing Korean words that loosely translate as "suicide bomb."

4:30 P.M. AKARENGASOKO
As you exit the Coast Guard facility, head to the Akarengasoko shopping mall a short walk away. The mall consists of two red brick buildings built in the early 1900s. Enter the nearer one, which is named Nigo-kan (Japanese for "second building"). The other brick building also has shops, cafes and restaurants, but on a smaller scale.

Inside, a caricature artist has a makeshift studio on the second floor. A color portrait takes less than 10 minutes to complete and costs 1,800 yen (about $19). Unusual shops abound: One called Communication Mania focuses on what are best described as conversation pieces. A bestseller, for instance, is a tube of toothpaste that tastes like curry.

5:30 P.M. YOKOHAMA MINATOMIRAI MANYO CLUB
From Akarengasoko, take a short ride in a Velo or a regular taxi to Yokohama Minatomirai Manyo Club ( 81-45-663-4126; 2-7-1 Shinko). Housed in a nine-story building, Manyo Club is a hot-spring theme park that has 120,000 liters of spring water trucked in daily from Atami and Yugawara, famous resorts about a two-hour drive from Yokohama. Admission is 2,620 yen a person (about $28).

Inside are several kinds of baths including a big pool as well as an open-air soaking tub. Up on the roof, you can sit on a wooden bench with your feet dipped in hot-spring water, while enjoying a 360-degree view of the city, a perfect end to the day's walk.

Just be sure to follow the proper onsen, or hot-bath, etiquette: You'll be given a yukata, or cotton kimono, to wear inside the facility, along with a thin towel for washing and a thicker towel for drying yourself after the bath. When wearing the yukata, drape the left side on top of the right side -- in Japan, the right-over-left wrap is reserved for dressing a dead body. Men's and women's baths are segregated, but the facility has a separate pool for couples and families. It costs an additional 3,200 yen (about $34) an hour.

Remove your clothes in the large changing room and place them in a locker. In the shower area, which is separate from the large bath, use the thin towel to wash your body. Before stepping into the bath, used for soaking only, be sure you've rinsed your body of all soap suds. Putting your thin towel in the bath is considered impolite, but some Japanese will fold it in a small square and place it on top of their head (to keep them cool, presumably -- the water temperature is typically a toasty 40 to 41 degrees Celsius).

After a nice bath, you can stay at the club and for 2,380 yen ($25) a person treat yourself to a Japanese kaiseki dinner, a set-course meal that includes sashimi, tempura, vegetables, rice, miso soup and dessert.

Write to Miho Inada at miho.inada@wsj.com

Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved