But we made it! About an hour outside of Tokyo is Yokohama, a bay area with lots of ships and a big maritime theme. Also the place where Japan allowed Commodore Perry park his ship and check out this exotic and unknown land. He was very insistent.
Well apparently it is also a place very near and dear to the heart of the person who decided they wanted to create an anime about a vampire detective who slays demons and figured Yokohama would be the perfect setting. The Marine tower, the Bay Bridge, the NYK Hikawamaru, construction cranes, China town, all of that just screams vampire anime, right? Sure!
It was like a fun scavenger hunt, looking for these places and I found quite a few! I think the artist took liberties on what the building Shido's office is in looks like, and for some reason they put London's Royal Opera House in Yokohama?? In the anime, that is. It's totally not there in real life. I suppose I'm asking for too much from a 12 episode anime from 1998.
It was a lot of walking, and it was very bright and unusually warm out (again), but I couldn't have asked for better weather. It was fun walking through Yamashita park and watching the people. China town is only a couple blocks but it's full of food and lanterns and Chinese glitz and kitsch. We ate there for both breakfast and lunch. Both recommended by a Youtuber. Breakfast was at A Happy Pancake, a place famous for their freshly made, fluffy pancakes. They were quite good! It was more like eating a souffle than a pancake but pretty darn tasty. Lunch was at a place called Kinryou, which is a butcher shop on the first floor and a tiny restaurant on the second. In fact there was only two tables: a large one, we sat at, with 4 other people, and a 3-seater long table already occupied. Kinda like The Eagle chicken restaurant in OTR. Anyway, I got the chashu and rice while Jeff ate a chashu steamed bun. It was...okay. I have a cat's tongue and like my food not boiling hot, but it came out a little cold. It tasted pretty good though but I don't know if I'd eat there twice. *shrugs*
By now we were getting kinda tired from walking. We had walked from Yamashita Park to the Red Brick Warehouses, through China Town, and back to the pier again. We had the Cup Noodle museum on the itinerary but we were pretty wiped. We decided to...
..get on the train, transfer to three different lines, and walk a bunch more through Nakano Broadway. What?! The promise of finding a rare anime figurine, or a comic or doujinshi from one of our fandoms is strong! We can ignore tired and aching feet if there's a promise of anime merch! And we did find a few things. Nothing too rare or surprising. Yet again, Jeff's keen eyes found probably the only Magic User's Club item in all of Nakano Broadway (an art book). We also went to a drug store and bought Jeff some throat lozenges (he woke up with a sore throat that was bothering him all day) and I hunted down foot pads for sore feet that had been recommended for lots of walking in Japan (I'm wearing them right now as I type, and after a nice hot soak in the tub, it's really weird, they're making my feet cold and...almost achy-crampy like they have a brain freeze, it's so weird! I hope it works).
Okay, by now it was 7:00 p.m. and we had been on our feet all day and I pulled the plug. We still had a floor and a half to go of NB but I told Jeff we could come back. I wasn't even hungry for our favorite ramen shop from 2016 that was right down the street from NB. Now that's true exhaustion!
Of course after getting back to the hotel (which had decorated for Christmas while we were gone! YAY!!) and sitting for a moment, we decided we were a little hungry and had just enough strength to go across the street and get food. Jeff bought the best fried chicken in the word- Famichiki- and I decided to try some oden since they had it out for the season. I got a daikon (oden winner), tofu (runner up), chikuwa, and shirataki noodles (my least favorite since the texture was so weird). It was just what I needed, not as heavy as ramen, and I got to finally try it for myself.
Tomorrow is Friday and I think we might try to go to Kawagoe. I really hope it cools down, I only brought one short-sleeved shirt! We'll see if our feet are up to it! Good night!
Nightwalker anime and real life comparison:
a Weaboo's pilgrimage to Yokohama
The Bay Bridge
China Town South Gate (couldn't find this exact one IRL)
The streets of China Town
The Marine Tower
The NYK Hikawa-maru
Supposedly the back of Shido's office building with the bridge going to the parks
Yamashita park along the bay with the Hikawa-maru
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