Yokohama & Kamakura

So this past weekend I was in Yokohama and Kamakura. Yokohama is sort of a working mans city, totally different feeling than Tokyo. The area is not a dense as Tokyo and is much more topographical, rolling hills and terracing homes. 

I stayed over at a friends place in a nice neighbourhood. Traditional home, 45 years old, which is considered very old here. My parents 110 year old home in Canada is ancient by Japanese standards. The next day we travelled to Kamakura, which is along the southern shore of the Yokohama area. Its a 'cottage' community, small scale and cheap! A roomy place was cheaper than a place in Toronto! Depressing, I would love to live in the area... 

Rolling Yokohama 'burb

I enjoyed the train ride to Kamakura. An older train that travelled incredible close to the local homes... and when I mean close I mean we were as close as 1 foot from hitting some of the walls of the old homes.

Many Rolling Hills

We toured a sort of weekend market area with a temple. The temple was interesting, they had two traditional Japanese weddings occurring. However, unlike the idyllic scene that Lost in Translation showed, it was full of tourists taking pictures of the newly weds during the ceremony. 

Traditional Wedding Temple

There was a chicken skin BBQ place that I broke down and bought from. The chicken skin came with kimchi and was absolutely delicious. Delicious up until I was attacked by a hawk! Just sitting there eating my food and a hawk dive bombed my dish of food on my leg... total shock. Didn't know what to make of it. I looked it up later and found that its not rare, the hawks appear to go for anything that is food

Sake and Beer Shrine :D

My friend took to an acquaintances place where we had a thai style dinner. I put together the BBQ for the dinner... makes me want to go buy my own now! It took forever to get the charcoal going... very windy in the area along the ocean. (oh to note, now I have seen the pacific on two sides of the world now). We hung out with friends for the night in Kamakura before making our way back to the house in Yokomama. 

Pacific Ocean

In all, it was a great weekend outside of Tokyo. The more I see of Japan the more it continues to make we want to stay here!

Yokohama at night, Yokohama bridge in the background

I thought I would be making deep discussions about architecture related topics on my blog, but its appears I have been writing more about day trips and all the foods I have had here! We'll see how this blog evolves...

ZUSHI

Yesterday my friend took me out to Zushi for a beach BBQ with her friends. I almost missed the day when I slept through two of my alarms... I got out of bed to check the time to make sure I wasn't sleeping in too late and bam!! there the time was 9:15, I was to meet my friend at Shinjuku at 9:30!!!... Called my friend, she said she'd wait for me... threw on my close, fixed my bed head hair and ran out the door. Thankfully I got the express train to Shibuya... only took me 30mins to travel the whole way... so only 30mins late... 

The trip to Zushi takes about 1 hour to get there. Zushi is a beach resort community South-West of Yokohama along the coast. On the journey there you can see many hotel guest houses... similar to our bed-and-breakfast sort of living. 

The beach that we went to was located in a cover area, protected from the sea. Unfortunately the day was cool out and a little cloudy. I didn't venture out into the water, but did take in the ocean air.

The BBQ was fantastic. Lots of food and drinks. Had lots of grilled meats and rice balls. I'll definitely have to make BBQ'd rice balls sometime! I ate a massive sea snail that was boiled in its own juices with a touch of booze. 

And the best part of the day was meeting a lot of new friends. Few of them had visited Toronto and another lived in Toronto working for the Blue Jays. Lots of cute girls and good dudes. Unfortunately I partook in a little too much alcohol. Because I ran out the door I didn't grab anything to eat for breakfast, the first meal I had was a can of Kirin (beer). Only made a fool of myself on the way home... so I kept face with most of my friends haha. 

In all it was a great day and meeting great new friends gives me more reasons to stay here :)