I love Chinatown. Honestly, a large part of why I love living in Philadelphia is because of its Chinatown. Coming from a city who’s Chinatown sold its soul to Verizon a long time ago (yeah, lookin at you DC), I never knew how important a good Chinatown was. Needless to say, when I found out that there was a Chinatown an hour away from Tokyo in Yokohama, I had to go. But lets not get ahead of ourselves.

Yokohama is Japan’s 2nd largest city by population. It rests in the Tokyo bay which makes it a perfect place for tourists, immigrants, and imported goods. Plus its not too bad to look at.

There was really a lot to enjoy in Yokohama, but I didn’t. I was restless. I needed to get to Chinatown. I didn’t go to the amusement park.

I didn’t buy any fancy imported beer.

I didn’t even hang out with the most ballinest Japanese dude in history.

Nope. I was on a mission.

Chinatown was beautiful. There were lanterns and gates and nearly every street was lit up and bustling. You could buy steamed buns almost anywhere you looked and pushy salesmen would accost you with free roasted chestnuts in the hope that you would buy a bag from their roasting cart. Restaurants were everywhere you turned and there was always a souvenir shop within a stone’s throw. 

Wait… All that is fine a good, cept for the souvenir shops. But what about the random markets? What of the fruit stands? Where the hell were the herb shops? Alas, the Chinatown in Yokohama was just a larger, brighter DC Chinatown. I learned after a bit of research that there weren’t many Chinese people who still lived in the Chinatown of Yokohama (sounds familiar). When they left, so did the places that catered to them (the places I like). It seems that the Chinatown of Yokohama had also become merely a tourist hub. At least it was beautiful.