The Big Excursion to Yokohama (11-23-2023)
Thursday was Thanksgiving Day back at home, but it was also something of a halfway Thanksgiving-like sort of day here in Japan as well. That having been said, I can't say I necessarily felt it, aside from the fact that some Shinto shrines were holding events to bring in good and bountiful crops for the coming year.
But for us on this day, we had big plans! Sadly, Nando was feeling particularly ill, and Stacy elected to stay behind with him, which was probably the correct course of action. That left Josh, Aaron, Kristen, and myself to move forward with the plans for the day. We all boarded the train for Yokohama together!
The plan for the day was to do a walking tour around a chunk of Yokohama that's largely seen in the recent additions to the Yakuza/Like A Dragon video games. I cannot begin to describe how much time Josh and I spent planning and coordinating this day. Before our trip, we would play one of the games like Lost Judgment and then also have Google Street View open at the same time to compare the in-world locations in the game to the real world. The games are super fascinating in that most of the game bases most of its world on real world locations and recreates those locations from the ground up. The attention to detail has been incredible.
The train ride was less than an hour, followed by several hours on our feet. Kristen and Aaron were troopers for sticking it out with us. We were sure to warn them that this could potentially be really boring to anybody who wasn't hardcore interested in any of the games. To an outsider, this potentially was just going to look like a lot of walking to do a lot of staring at a bunch of buildings that have no meaning. But they stuck with us anyway while we took pictures and videos of buildings that represented in-game locations where you find stores or restaurants or minigames or any other variety of things.
In the middle of our trip, we walked up to a Jonathan's (a family restaurant chain). The restaurant exists in the game as well, although it has been renamed to Livingston, and you can't actually go inside it. We, however, took the opportunity to stop there for lunch. I personally ordered a steak and baked potato. Good food! Not only that, but it was delivered by a cute food delivery robot, too!
After finishing the food, we moved through Yamashita Park, a very large and prominent area in the recent Like A Dragon games. This part felt the most like walking through the game in person, walking alongside the waterfront of Tokyo Bay. Really cool to be there in person.
At the opposite end of the park sat the Yokohama Gundam, the current largest Gundam, and the one with the most mobility. We stuck around long enough to see some short shows of it moving with lights and sound. I left the site having purchased a magnet from the store to prove that I had been there.
Once done with the Gundam, we moved on to Yokohama Chinatown, Asia's largest Chinatown outside of China itself. Interestingly, a number of things from Chinatown have been recreated in the Yakuza games, but it's kinda been rearranged, so all the important spots are in slightly different places from their real world locations. The main entrance and exit gates, however, are pretty much exactly where they're supposed to be. After much walking, Kristen found a mango-flavored treat she really wanted--shaved ice covered in mango syrup and surrounded by slices of mango. The shaved ice was really soft and fluffy, and was actually a lot more like snow than, say, the kind of shaved ice or raspas you might find across America. Not a bad experience! The lady at the counter gave me the good ol' "Nihongo jouzu!" (Your Japanese is good!) But honestly, Japanese people will tell you that even if your Japanese is really garbage. But all you're supposed to do is respond with, "Iie, mada mada desu." (No, I have a long way to go.) It's almost more of a scripted call and response, honestly. But while some people are irritated by getting the "Nihongo jouzu" from people, I think it's a rite of passage and I'm more than happy to play the game.
Moving on from Chinatown, we walked around the outside of Yokohama Stadium, home of the local baseball team, the Yokohama Baystars. We continued on forward and saw other in-game locations like the main train station and Isezaki Mall (known as Isezaki Road in the games). It would be hard to list every single neat location in this blog, so I'm saving that for a video that I'll be posting on my own platforms at a later date.
Somehow, we managed to squeeze all these crazy locations in just before we lost the light of day. My feet were in a lot of pain by the end of the day, and I honestly couldn't think straight anymore, but I was feeling pretty happy and fulfilled with everything we saw and did. I can't believe I saw so much of that city, and that I managed to walk through the bulk of a video game in real life. Everyone should try it sometime!
We sat on a train back to Asakusa for about an hour, and then went looking for food. One particular place that was really important to Josh was just a few minutes' walk away from Asakusa Station, where we had visited on the first night of our first trip together eight years ago. Sadly, at that time, Josh had arrived in Japan quite sick and couldn't taste anything. For that reason, our return to this restaurant was very important to him, so that this time he could actually taste his food. It was a pretty great way to wind the day down. A really tasty bowl of Chashumen.
As we all walked back to our respective hotel buildings, Josh stopped inside a 7-11 while I stood by myself and waited for him outside. At that time, a little old man in a hat, wearing a mask, and pulling a wheeled bag of luggage walked in my direction. When he got right up next to me, he suddenly found something about me very interesting. He walked all the way up to me and stuck his face directly next to my chest, seeming to trying to get a closer examination of my shirt. I am choosing to believe this as a generous interpretation of what exactly was happening. I had been wearing a Gundam-themed shirt that day, since we had visited the Yokohama Gundam earlier. So I moved my bag and jacket out of the way so he could look a little easier, and I simply said to him, "Gundam." The man replied, "Gundam!? ...Ah." And then he simply walked away! No further interaction, no more context. Why did that happen? I'll simply never know!
That's it for yet another day. Much more to come soon!
