Yokohama

See this awesome guy?  This was construction in Shinjuku, on our way to the train station.  He waves his arm, and that circle next to him, as you can see, lit up and flashed and did fun things.  Ariel has a video of it that she may or may not upload to her blog...

Anyway.  So today was the day we wanted to ride down to Yokohama.  But before I talk about that, let me show you our map of the train lines so I can fully explain.  Here it is:

You will probably want to look at it bigger.  It's not near as bad as it first looks, it's nice and color-coded and well-labeled.  We have spent most of our trip thus far on the green circle in the middle (the Yamanote Line), pretty easy, it just goes in a circle around and around.  Today we wanted to ride down to Yokohama, which is down to the left along the blue, orange, and red lines from the Yamanote Line.  Easy, right?  So we find the platform for the Shonen-Shinjuku (the red line) and head towards it.  Just our luck, we reach the platform right as a train is getting ready to depart so we jump on, little thinking that there could be other trains leaving from the same platform.  No way.  Which is how we ended up reaching Shin-Kiba (which is just to the right of the Tokyo station) instead of in Yokohama because the train onto which we so hastily hopped ended up switching tracks and neither of us were paying attention.  Oops.

There was a really nice man at the end of the tracks who explained to us what happened, and told us to just get back on and ride back to Osaki, and then get onto the right train from there.  So what do we do in the mean time?  Take pictures:

Hello Captain Kirk.  Technically, I took this at one of the stops, hopping off and then back on again.  I never got Spock though, but he was definitely there too.

Whoo-hoo!  We're on the wrong train at the wrong station!

And we were the only people on the train.  Because everyone else had meant to come here so got off.

But this was the only detour we took without meaning to, so that was pretty cool of us.  But eventually we made it to Yokohama, and since I am tired I am going to throw in a bunch of pictures :)

I had a habit of getting in Ariel's pictures without even realizing it...

Pretty glass.

Oooo....aaaahhhh....

This Awesome mural was over the entrance to an underground mall-type area

It was so busy, it was impossible to get a decent picture.

My cute cousin :)

Yeah, I suck at "selfies" but ah well, we had fun anyway.  So there.

Random graffiti!  Japan was usually so clean.

This awesome sign.  Yep.

We quickly got oriented and started walking to our next destination. Passing this tree on the way.

 Walking through Yokohama was a little different from the rest of Japan we'd been in so far:  there was a lot of highway with walking paths either under or over.  But using only the map we had found in an otherwise empty koban (police-box.  Where you find policemen to help you out!) and asking directions once, we were able to make our way to the Landmark Plaza.  Wahoo!  The first order of business was to get lunch, because we were hungry.  We got a dish called Oyakodon:  parent and child (?), referring to the fact that it is a chicken and rice dish, and then an egg is broken into it to cook into the rice.  I was not a fan of this meal.  Raw egg makes me squirm unless it is hiding in something such as cookie dough, and it was still very...slimey...in the rice.  I couldn't finish it :(

Oyakodon, with an umeboshi (pickled plum) and soup.

Side dish of fried chicken pieces.

Staircase in Landmark Plaza

Such cool waterfalls!

Twisty escalators.

For my mom :)

Cool landscape art outside

Hard Rock Cafe!  Because you always have to get a picture, right?  Isn't it a rule?

So the main reason for going to the Landmark Tower was for it's Pokemon Center.  Now, 98% of what I know about Pokemon is from the Smash Brothers games.  2% is what I picked up by associating with people who know about Pokemon.  So I am not very helpful at this point of the blog, mostly I stood around and collected tags for Ariel's gameboy DS while Ariel shopped, because just about everyone in the place was on their gameboy so there were a lot of opportunities for tagging.*  I didn't get any pictures, and I wasn't able to find any online to use, so you'll just have to use your imagination.  A store full of everything Pokemon.  There was such a variety of people there though, and the majority of them were playing for some special gift or something that was only available at that location.  Ariel was kicking herself for leaving her games at the hotel.  I was just people-watching :)

Our next plans were to head towards Cosmo World, which is an amusement park that is free to walk around, you just pay for each ride separately.  It has a famous Ferris Wheel Clock and was on our List of Things to Do.  But as we exited to head towards it we came across some street performers just outside.  So we stopped to watch them, and they were So Fun.  They were zipping along in Japanese, so it was all going right over my head, but their energy and enthusiasm was universal, and they were funny.  They were from England and the USA (?), but as to how they joined up and ended up in Japan, all that went over my head.
 
As soon as I learn why it won't let me upload videos, I will get videos uploaded.

 We stayed and watched the rest of their act, and it was definitely worth it.  And THEN we were off to Cosmo World.  I got a caricature done because I think they are funny, but Ariel refused to sit in on it with me because she thinks they are ugly.  Ah well.

Ariel riding a giraffe :)

Double-decker Carousel?

With tall buildings.  One of which is Landmark Plaza

When we walked up, there was a roller coaster going, and it headed straight down into a pool with a gigantic splash!!  Of course, there was a tunnel, and fountains to splash up and create the effect, but from where we were standing it seriously looked like it had gone straight into the water.  It was such an awesome effect that we had to ride that Roller Coaster, and took it first.  Wahoo!  I Love Roller Coasters!  Then we wandered around looking at the crane games and getting more gachupon so we could ride the ferris wheel when it was dark and we could see everything lit up.  It was so pretty!  But unfortunately, I could not get very good pictures. But here's dinner and dessert:

Tonkatsu bento!

Boba drinks from this lovely establishment

This fun little guy was on our straws

*Tagging may not be the official word used, but that's what Ariel calls it, so that's what I call it (look for DS Streetpass).  If you've played the Wii, then you know about Mii's.  The DS has the same sort of deal: you create a little persona/mii-character to represent yourself.  Then when you are near someone who has their "tag" abilities on their DS enabled, you "tag" each other: meaning, you collect their Mii into your little plaza, and they collect yours.  It gives you some info on the person depending on what they have filled out/enabled: their region of where they live, what they have been playing most recently, some random question they answered.  You get special bonuses for collecting certain amounts of Miis, and from certain regions (Ariel almost got the whole country of Japan while we were there), getting so many playing the same game in a row, etc.  And you can play a game using the Miis you collect as well as unlock new things for certain games you own.  I often took Ariel's DS to check her tags because it was fascinating.