On a “solo excursion,” I walked from Yokohama’s the Grand Pier to Minato-Mirai along the Locomotive road with the red brick warehouse on the side, and then returned to Chinatown again because I became hungry. What an ironclad sightseeing course! But that’s all right. This time, I was just a tourist who came to Yokohama almost for the first time in a long time.
I was hungry, so I went to Chinatown for lunch and had the good idea to take some exotic and witty Chinatown snapshots…but I was shallow.
I had underestimated the explosion of people’s desire to go out and have fun, which had been suppressed by the Corona disaster over the years. Here is what Chinatown Boulevard looked like that day.
First of all, it is difficult to walk straight. It is also difficult to stop. In addition to the waves of people flowing in both directions, there are people crowding around stores to see what’s going on, people standing in line, people eating and chatting with each other, with tenshin and sweets in their hands… the boulevard is literally chaos. There was literally no room for a witty snapshot.
For now, let’s calm down.
I escape to a slightly less densely populated neighborhood street, buy some tea leaves for home use as souvenirs at my favorite tea house near the Guantian Temple, and luckily find an empty seat at my favorite small restaurant, so I successfully achieve my minimum goal of a good lunch.
After settling down, I went out of the restaurant and found that it was even more crowded than before, so I gave up on taking pictures of Chinatown and left early, taking only a panoramic view of the Guanti Mausoleum as an alibi.
Escape Chinatown and head for the spacious Yamashita Park.
The street in front of the park was lined with gingko trees, their beautiful yellow leaves shining against the blue sky.
So, I decided that the snapshot theme for the day would be “shining gingko leaves in yellow”. Here are some photos of gingko trees.
Marine Tower through the leaves.
Even people strolling through the park can’t help but admire the view.
The wind blows and rustles the shining leaves.
I was hoping that if the wind blew a little stronger, I would be able to get a more flashy shot of the flash, but the sun moved in and blocked the sunlight at this location, so that was the end of it. It’s not easy to get a good shot.
The pavement across from the park. I think this corner was the most brilliant of the rows of trees.
So much for the volume of gingko leaves around the park.
Speaking of Yamashita Park, there is the Hikawa Maru. I have never seen the ship from the starboard side, but at this time of day, the starboard side was facing the sun, so I took the rare opportunity to go around the ship.
So this is probably the first time I’ve seen the white lighthouse relocated here. It is quite photogenic.
We arrived at Yamashita Pier on the southeast side of the park.
I was drawn to a small flower bed in the corner of the spacious bus stop. The last photo in this issue is a shot of pretty flowers with the Hikawa Maru on the pier as a backdrop.
I thought I had walked to the east end of the large Yamashita Park, so I cut off and turned back for the rest of the day. I should go back there next time.
So, I have divided my “solo excursion” to Yokohama into three articles.
Thank you very much for watching until the end.
Equipment used: LUMIX G99, Leica DG12-60
