Days 12 and 13: Goodbye Japan

I'm combining these days for two reasons. First, we didn't do all that much, secondly, the last day of Japan was mostly traveling out of the country. This means that I don't have much material.

Since we were moving hotel to hotel using trains, we decided not to buy souvenirs as we went along. A good decision in terms of moving about, bad when it came to our last days of the trip. We took a whole day getting our gifts for those left a home.

We chose to go back down to the Minato Mirai 21 since it is mall central, as I posted earlier. We went to the World Porter mall, which is past Cosmo World. We chose it because we thought it would have more pop stuff (ie engrish). We were able to find quite a bit of great stuff.

On our way over there we saw this gem, and almost thought we were home in Mexicali.




On the bridge on our way over:







There are three of these bridges, two of them were built in 1907 in New York and sent to Japan in pieces, the other is a little newer, built in the 20s. I'm glad we are known for ugly bridges in Yokohama




Some cars we saw this day:






What you can't see is the massive wing. This was one of VERY few rice cars we saw


Aren and I disagree on our favorite of the box cars. I prefer the Nissan Cube, Aren likes this Mitsubishi


Estoril blue 318ti


E36 Alpina


Here are some of the gems from the mall:

Even the Japanese know the power of the wolf shirt


The Japanese LOVE Americana.


CD Player


We got the Engrish we wanted, but still needed some nicer stuff for the parents. We walked down the coast to the Yamashita-Koen area. The book labeled this as a tourist part of Yokohama. We thought we would be able to find some more souvenir like stuff, but struck out.










Just a little dog


Having failed we walked back to the Kannel train station, but had issues connecting to the Yokohama line to get back to Shin-Yokohama. We had to connect, but it wasn't a big problem, just a little confusing.

Some photos as we waited for the train:




We ended up taking this line to connect with the Yokohama line




Back at Shin-Yokohama is was a total mess around the station. Our station was close to the Yokohama Area, where some J-Pop chick was playing while we were there. All of these girls were trying to get tickets (we think)





and buying pop stuff


The next day was more of the same. We still had no gifts for our parents, so decided to try a new area. After checking out, we kept our bags at the hotel, and asked if they could recommend a place for Japanese gifts, like the figurines in kimono or what not. They suggested the mall at the Yokohama station, so we hoped on the train and headed over. We chose not to bring our camera this day and it proved to be a mistake, as the best Engrish of the trip was missed. One of the shops in the mall was actually called Pecker and Wood. :(

We went to the information desk and asked for a fan shop. We followed the directions and found a shop filled with beautiful fans. We bought a few and then went to the other mall, which was connected to this mall (yeah). In the other mall we went to the 6th floor, called the Japan Floor. It was filled with beautiful pottery, kimono, etc, etc, etc. We got the rest of our gifts here.

After that we went up to the restaurant floor and FINALLY found a shabu place. This was our last meal in Japan, and boy was it amazing! For those who don't know, you cook your own food at Shabu places. There is a pot of boiling water in front of you, and you are served very thinly cut meat and veggies. You also get a place with rice or noodles, and sauce. You put the food in the water until it's cooked, then put it into the sauce and eat it. Oh so good.

After this it was a mad rush for our plane. We made reservations for the train when we got back to the station. We had very little time to run and get our bags before making our Shinkansen to Shinagawa. Then, we had 5 minutes to get to the Narita Express. We made both trains, but had some problems at the airport. There are two terminals at the airport, and we didn't know which one we needed. We ended up getting off at the wrong station, and wasted a lot of time getting over to the other terminal. Our waste of time meant we got some pretty bad seats on the plane.

At 6:30 we boarded our plan and officially said goodbye to Japan. It was an amazing two weeks, filled with many new experiences and wonderful sites. But we were ready to go home.