A day in Yokohama

I’ve been itching to blog about this for quite some time…

However, there was a paper on International Politics that I had to submit last week.
Then, there were two papers on Globalization of Culture and Asia that I had to submit last Tuesday.
One more paper to go – due to be submitted by next Tuesday, so I’ve decided to take a short break now and blog a little bit (mind you, I have taken breaks in between the three papers – finishing Sophie Kinsella’s “Shopaholic and Sister” and Iris Johansen’s “The Ugly Duckling” – resulting in me finishing my papers at the very last minute… I know, I have a bad sense of priority…blergh...)

I had a two-week break in late December until early January. Told hubby that it would be a great time to do some travelling since I was feeling rather fit and we still only had to take care of one baby… So, we considered some options – including going to Niigata, or Hiroshima, or Kyoto/Osaka using JR’s seishun 18 kippu (dirt cheap train tickets to be used during certain periods of the year). As it happened – hubby was not quite free during these two weeks though. First, he had to prepare to be the Imam for Solat Eidul Adha in the Malaysian Embassy. Then, he was invited to be a guest speaker at a Seminar Keluarga Muslim organized by AMIR a few days after that. Not to mention that the mosque was visited by people from various groups for various programs during the two weeks. And on the last Sunday before school re-opened, there was that wedding I mentioned earlier, between Mariam-san and Jehan-san.

I think it was partly because he felt guilty for not taking me anywhere and partly because he too wanted to discover some new place, hubby suggested going to Yokohama on Monday, the last day before school re-opened. I was not keen on the idea because I had to go to school the next day and we often return home late whenever we go out for such excursion. Hubby persisted, did all the homework on Yokohama (finding the fares, the interesting places to visit etc on the Net) that in the end I just didn’t have the heart to say no.

So, that Monday morning, I woke up earlier to prepare breakfast and lunch (nasi goreng), got Huzaifah ready and off we went. Unfortunately, I realized that I had left my wallet at home as we were about to enter the train station. Alhamdulillah hubby carried some cash with him too, so we decided to just go ahead without having to go back and pick up my wallet at home. Yup we travelled all the way to Yokohama without me carrying any ID or ATM cards (it’s important for gaijin to carry our IDs with us all the time because there’s no telling when we would be asked to produce our alien card by some patrolling policeman who has nothing better to do). Tawakaltu a’lallah ajelah…

Since I did not do any reading on Yokohama (like I did with Hakone), I decided to let hubby led the way. But he didn’t seem to be all that well-versed like I hoped, so in the end, I had to do lots of the “navigation” while we were there.

Anyway, we both decided that Yokohama is much prettier than Tokyo – cleaner, more organized (no messy electrical/communication wires overhead and we did not see any ‘under construction’ signs on the road during the day) and the people are a bit friendlier. We took a 45 minute ride on the Sea Bass (perhaps to differentiate it from the Tokyo Sea Bus) from Yokohoma Bay Quarter to Yamashita Koen, stopping by Minato Mirai and Aka Renga.

Huzaifah obviously enjoyed the ferry ride, running back to front numerously – which got me worried but his father said to just monitor him, and not stop him from enjoying himself, so long as he did not disturb others. Alhamdulillah we didn’t get any dirty look from other passengers and the ferry itself was not filled to the max, so Huzaifah had plenty of room to run about, sometimes with people mumbling “kawaii” as he passed them…

Yamashita Koen was another place where Huzaifah had a great time running here and there. He’s getting pretty fast now, so it wasn’t easy to keep up with him, what with the extra weight that I carried and all... I worried about him running into a cyclist, or a bigger kid, or a dog… but alhamdulillah none of that happened. I guess sometimes a mother just can’t help worrying a tad too much…

We took photos of the recently closed-to-public Hikawa Maru and Marine Tower. Once called the "Queen of the Pacific", Hikawa Maru used to be a luxury cargo-passenger ship, operating between 1930-1960, connecting Japan with Seattle and Vancouver. Due to a decrease in visitors, it was closed to public beginning 25^th December 2006. Marine Tower, the largest on-land lighthouse in the world, another famous landmark of Yokohama, was also closed on the same day, due to similar factor. The Yokohama City Office had taken over the management of Marine Tower and it is expected to be re-opened in 2009. Although there is a plan for Hikawa Maru to be re-opened too, the date is yet unknown.

Then we walked to Chukagai, the biggest China Town in Japan. Since it happened to be a public holiday, the place was so crowded that I asked hubby to go ahead and take photos on his own while Huzaifah and I waited at one of the four entrance gates. From what I could see, the place was lined with mostly Chinese restaurants and Chinese snack stalls – mostly selling pork-filled dumplings. So, I guess I didn’t miss much by not exploring it thoroughly.

Next, we took a train to Minato Mirai – the central attraction of the new, modern Yokohama. Minato Mirai is, among others, home of Landmark Tower (tallest building in Japan), the yacht-shaped Intercontinental hotel, the Queen's Square shopping mall and the Cosmo World amusement park.

We walked along Queen’s Square, bought some drinks and buns at a konbini there and then strolled to the neighboring Cosmo World. There is no entrance fee for Cosmo World, and although I would have loved a roller coaster ride or two, my condition did not permit me to do so. Thus we ended up taking just one ride – on Cosmo Clock 21, which stands at 115m, and reputed to be one of the tallest ferris wheels in the world. Even then, hubby insisted on waiting until nightfall before taking the ride, “baru pemandangan cantik sikit,” or so he claimed. Alhamdulillah the queue was not that long when we boarded the gondola, but 15 minutes later as we exited it, the line had grown considerably long – made up by mostly teenagers and couples in early twenties.

Huzaifah yet again had a wonderful time during the ferris wheel ride, jumping excitedly as he took in the wonderful sights – of not only Yokohama city, but the sea as well as sun setting behind Mount Fuji. I later told Mak how excited he was, showing no sign of fear of height in the gondola, and Mak’s response was maybe we should consider training him as a jet fighter pilot one day as it is difficult to find Muslims who are trained to be high-precision pilot and all. (Oh well, sometimes I think Mak watches too much Discovery/National Geographic channel…)

We bought a souvenir photo of our family taken just before we boarded the ferris wheel. As it costed 800 yen, hubby was a bit reluctant to buy it, but I insisted on it anyway because we bought no other souvenir to mark our first trip to Yokohama (we intend to have a repeat trip – maybe to Hakkeijima Sea Paradise,Minato Mieru Oka Koen, Aka Renga and Motomachi/Yamate).

Then we walked to Sakuragicho eki to take the subway to go to Azamino, to visit a newfound acquaintance’s place. More click-clicking of camera as there were some interesting places along the way. I let hubby did most of the snapping as I pushed Huzaifah's baby car towards the Queen's Mall indoor passageway to avoid the cold wind. Saw a Cold Stone Creamery outlet in Landmark Tower buidling, and thought it would be a better place to have ice cream than the store in Roppongi because it was warmer inside the building.

It took us about 30 minutes to reach Azamino on the subway, but when we arrived there Soffian, who had so kindly invited us for dinner at his house, was already waiting for us with his son. We had never met before - in fact hubby just learned about Soffian from one of his Indonesian neighbors who attended one of the programs held during winter break in the mosque – but apparently Soffian had already known hubby since he attended the Solat Eidul Adha in the embassy. He made a remark somewhere along the line that the recent khutbah was rather refreshing and relevant to the audience – and I was glad to hear that, to know that at least someone actually paid attention…

It was easy to hit it off with Farah, his bubbly wife. She looked so familiar that I thought we might have met before, but she said she got similar remarks a lot, but no, she didn’t think we have ever met before. I learned a thing or two about maternity care in Japan from her and was rather impressed with the way she communicated with her two kids. Abang, her 5-year-old first born, is fluent in Nihongo but not BM, so he spoke more to me than hubby. His knowledge on trains in Japan was so impressive, that I thought if there’s such a thing as an episode of Kid TV Champion on trains, he might be a strong contender. He collects lots and lots of train models, and even the calendar under the transparent dining table cover featured different trains in Japan.

We finally said goodbye at around 9.00 p.m., inviting Soffian’s family to visit us in Asakusa. Farah said that her parents might be visiting them later and if they go to Asakusa, maybe they can visit us in the mosque.

Soffian sent us to take the Den-en-toshi line train from Tama Plaza, and we changed to Ginza line at Omotesando with little difficulty (because Den-en-toshi/Hanzomon line and Ginza line shared the same platform at Omotesando eki). We reached home around 11.00 p.m., exhausted yet glad that finally we got to travel someplace other than Tokyo during my school break…