We have a whole day planned for today in Yokohama.  After our normal morning routine (where Ed gets up to hijinx and pretends he’s a nomad with his treadmill photo), we were off the ship early, in search of an ATM.  We had found one yesterday, but it closed (yes, the ATM closes – they lock the doors!) at 5pm, and we were just a bit late.  So we headed there again this morning, only to find that our card wouldn’t work in this particular ATM. Very weird.  It’s a Yokohama bank ATM, so maybe it is only for their own accounts?  Who knows, but that was a bust.  Easy fix.  Around the corner is a Lawson’s – we can always find ATMs there.  Success. Card worked. Money in hand. We begin our meandering, stopping here and there to snap photos of the ubiquitous vending machines and those plastic dish representations of menu items at restaurants.  We love those things!

Since we are early for the 10am opening of the Hikawa Maru Cargo-Passenger liner museum, we wandered around Yamishita park where the huge food festival we saw yesterday was still going on today.  Awesome!  From what our translation app says, this is the Yokohama World Festa – essentially food and music from all sorts of different cultures. The organizers are putting the final touches on one of those great flower petal mosaics in the shape of the festival logo, which is fun to watch.  And, oh, then there are the food stalls and trucks!  Indonesian, Turkish, Thai, Japanese, Indian, American, just about everything you could want. As we wandered about before they opened, we found a stand that had jumbo Takoyaki.  Sold!  Jumbo squid croquettes? Oh we are totally in, because we really wanted some Takoyaki, but didn’t know if we’d have a chance before Osaka, which is like 2 weeks away.  We’ll just eat here instead of Chinatown.  Perfect! 

Finally, time for the ship, we head to the gates, enjoying the translation of the signs – especially the one that says don’t walk barefoot to avoid the thorns on the floor!!!  And of course, more vending machines.  But it is really fun watching the guy refill the ice cream vending machine (we didn’t think it would be appropriate to take a picture).  In a few minutes, the guard opens the fence to the museum and we manage to be the first inside.  We even got discounts on the already cheap entrance fee from some coupon I found.  It was 150 Yen ($1 USD) each! And totally worth it.  The Hikawa Maru ship was one of the first state of the art liners that Japan produced.  It was built in the 1930, designed to carry passengers on the Japan-Seattle route.  During WWII it was used as a hospital ship, and struck mines on 3 different occasions, but was never sunk.  After the war, in 1953, it was converted back to a passenger ship continuing the Japan-Seattle run.  The ship made 254 voyages and carried more than 25,000 passengers during the 30 years it was commercially used.  The Hikawa Maru is the only surviving cargo-passenger liner built in Japan before WWII and has been designated as a nationally important Cultural Property due to its industrial heritage.

And it is totally cool!  We got to explore the entire ship!  The route inside the ship starts at the first-class cabins, which are on the B Deck, which is where we enter.  The cabins themselves are very well appointed for their time – small, yes, but so is the whole ship!  The small narrow hall leads into the children’s room, which then leads into the huge dining room, with lovely leather chairs and of course, those plastic models of food that every restaurant has outside with their menus.  Too funny. But it is definitely sumptuous, including the sample menu on display. 

Then it is upstairs to the library/reading room – with the model of the Mark Twain paddle boat on top of the bookcases.  Next is the social hall – another lovely space for the first-class passengers to enjoy entertainment and spend time together, oh, and it is complete with a working fireplace.  On a ship!  Yikes! 

At the top of the open stairway, there is a lovely wrought iron rail with a design that is incorporates the Yakuma, or eight clouds, of the Hikawa shrine for which the ship was named.  I guess you can see that – especially since the information placard shows you exactly where to look!  Precision.  Thy name is Japan.

We walk through an interesting display that chronicles every day in a typical voyage from Japan to Seattle – very creative.  And sort of scary as it shows going through a storm.  Argh.  It was bad enough on our much larger, much more sophisticated ship – no way I’d be a happy camper on this puppy. 

Then we are onto the smoking lounge, with a lovely stained glass window and into another narrow little hallway with more first-class cabins, this time the suites, which are very nice and actually spacious and actually have ensuite toilet and bathing facilities.  Hoity toity.

Now we get to explore the upper decks, which have great views across the harbor to our current ride, the much more sophisticated Noordam.  Kind of a cool juxtaposition though.  We get to play on the bridge – we’re steering the ship!  Ha!  Nobody wants that.  There are all sorts of technologically advanced (for its time) navigation systems and also this intriguing (well, to me) smoke-tube type fire detector that was ahead of its time.  Pretty amazing.  The last room on the bow above decks was the captain’s cabin is right up with the bridge, for easy access, and is very nice. 

Climbing down the steep stairs, we head to the stern of the ship, where there is yet another steering wheel and operation – plus these great stern wings that we have fun playing upon.

We also get to go down into the engine room – totally cool.  It is below sea level with these huge pistons, dials and levers and valves and all sorts of big engine parts stuff. It was amazing!

The last stop on the tour were the third-class cabins – which were everything you would think a third-class cabin would look like. Little more than closets with lots of bunks.  And definitely no ensuite facilities! 

Totally well worth the time – and of course the entrance fee!

Then it was out into the crowds. Oh the people!  It wasn’t even 11am and the food festival was swarming.  So much so that we couldn’t even find a seat at a table to eat our Takoyaki!  And there were hundreds of seats!!  But that wasn’t going to stop us.  Oh no.  We just stood under a tree in the shade (it’s hot in the sun!) and happily munched on jumbo Takoyaki balls.  They were excellent! 

Then, since it was still so early, we decided to hit the Silk Museum which is located between us and the cruise pier. First though we stop for some ice coffees at a little café – remember – it’s sort of hot here!  The café clerk is adorable, asks if I want an English menu and then begins to grill me on how long we are here, if we like it, would we come back.  She is very happy with my affirmative answers – so cute!  And the coffees are quite refreshing. I actually got a salted caramel latte which was fabulous. Like a coffee milk shake dessert.  Perfect.

After our little rest, we hit the Silk museum which was really quite interesting and informative.  We have visited a silk farm somewhere previously in our travels, we think maybe Viet Nam? Who knows, but even though the process is relatively familiar to us this place is really a lovely learning experience.  The first part of the museum walks you through the growing process of a silkworm, from larvae to cocoon, but also puts the process into relative terms.  There is a display with different silk items and then a representation of how many cocoons it takes to make the item.  9,000 cocoons for one kimono!  Those little silkworms are amazing! 

A whole room deals with the role silk has played in Yokohama, basically making the port and city the trade hub that it is today. But also a great chart showing the decline of silk farming and production from a peak in the 1930’s to virtually nothing in 2003.  Definitely an industry in decline here.

The entire second floor is made up of a special exhibition featuring Kataezome artists.  Kataezome is a dyeing technique that uses stencil patterns to create the beautiful artwork seen on silk wall hangings, kimonos and noren (those curtains that hang in every traditional Japanese restaurant entrance).  What makes this technique so special is that the artist personally handles every stage of the process, from sketching out the design to cutting the stencil to each dye color, even preliminary sewing.  Unfortunately we aren’t allowed to take photos, so we can’t share any of the beautiful designs that are displayed. 

Before leaving, we wander through the gift shop and end up purchasing a really pretty little handmade silk purse for me to use on the ship.  I had planned to get another Thai purse in Chiang Mai, but this works just as well and is a special reminder of our great day here in Yokohama…..which is not over yet….oh no, not by a long shot!

Since we still have oodles of time before all aboard, we decided to at least go see Chinatown. Holy cow! You have never seen so many people! I tried to take a video, but it didn’t do the crowds justice.  And the lines!  Every restaurant or food window stall had lines that had to be hours long to get in and have food!  Thank heavens we decided to eat at the park.  It was crazy town over there – so crowded it was uncomfortable.  Needless to say, we bobbed and weaved our way through the main street and headed out as fast as possible. 

Our next aim is Daiso, the 1 coin store (100 yen = .67 US Cents).  To get there we had to traverse a park, that ended up being the Yokohama Baystars Baseball team’s stadium park. And there was a game getting ready to start.  Bummer!  Had we known, maybe we could have gone to the game – at least for a little bit. We did wander through the team store, but decided against buying anything as we were unsure of the sizes, and it was mostly jerseys, no t-shirts.  It was an idea at least.

Making our way to the mall that held Daiso, we found the store easily enough on the 2^nd floor and shopped to our hearts content.  We bought a bunch of weird stuff – like a stand for the phone when we want to watch something and not have to hold the phone the entire time, wires to charge the phone (Ed’s phone has a charging issue and we keep trying different things like new wires, trying to clean the charging port, etc.), batteries (because we need them for the new clock) and snacks – of course snacks!  67 cents each.  Now that’s crazy town!!!

Then it was back to the ship – with a stop at Lawsons for more snacks. Yeah. We’re bad, but who can resist little pancakes filled with caramel?  At the port, re-boarding was a snap. We walked right through the in-transit line and were onboard in a jiffy where…..OMG again.  Tale of 2 cruises!!!  This one? OLD.  We were almost run over twice by scooters backing off an elevator.  Australian heavy (Yikes! Won’t be able to get near a bar!) and kids!!!!!  Um, can we have the nomads back??????? 

It was so crazy onboard that we decided to not even bother trying the dining room and hit the buffet for dinner instead. It was a gorgeous night and we could sit outside.  Salad and prime rib.  Can’t go wrong.  Then we hid in the cabin.  We shall see how it goes. Thank God we have ports virtually every day!

Wish us luck……