August 14, 2010 aka Exploring Yokohama for the last time

So, today was the start of the last weekend in Japan. SAD !!!!! I can't believe that this was the second last day I had to ride the trains and subways, and to see all the sights and stuff. Craziness times like a zillion. Although my pocketbook is definitely smiling and ready to kick me back to America. Lol. Today Julie and I headed to Yokohama and explored a little bit. We first went to the Ramen Museum, which ended up being in Shin- Yokohama, so despite earlier vows to never return after the backwards train incident, I went back if only to experience more of the awesomeness that is Ramen. This museum was pretty awesome, and the whole inside of it was themed to like Tokyo in the 1950's or something, and so the whole thing looked like an old city, and they even had like traditional candy and toy shops set up on the street looking thing with all of the ramen restaurants. We unfortunately didn't end up trying any of the ramen mostly because the wait was like fricken an hour at each restaurant. Way too much time. The history of Ramen was cool too although we just had to gather it from the pictures and dates since the actual writing was in Japanese. Interestingly, cup of noodles was introduced the same year that we went to the moon, so pretty much that was the coolest year ever. After the museum, we went to the Kirin brewery in Yokohama called Kirin Beer Village. It was pretty much plain awesome. We got a free tour and then got to see how all the beer was brewed and made. The other best part of it is that we got two free drinks at the end. Me, being the responsible person I am got alcohol-free beer and juice as my two drinks. Not really in the mood for a beer, just wanted the taste. We looked around the Yokohama station mall before heading back home, but everything was too expensive. At least none of our trains went backwards while we were traveling today. Every time the train stopped and even like one person got off Julie and I grew very anxious. When we got back to the Sagamino station, we went to the 100 yen store inside this building on the way home. I only got a couple of things, since I've already finished souvenier shopping, but I couldn't help but buy this printed toilet paper. Its blue and has flowers on it. You can't get that anywhere in the states, and I can't wait to see the looks on peoples' faces when they walk into my bathroom in the duplex. Or even just Bethy and Livy's faces ha ha. We then walked to the Bonodori festival on base, which is like the annual festival including both the NAF people and the Japanese in the town. It was so incredibly awesome because there was traditional music and dancing , Which is something I had not yet gotten to experience. There were people up on stage leading the crowd in different dances while the traditional singing and drumming was going on. Just plain awesome. I danced for a while and felt immersed in the culture. Plus I got to eat a hot dog. Holla! I tried Julie's Okonomiyaki (which is like a Japanese pizza / pancake with all kinds of stuff inside), but it was nasty. Glad I didn't get any to try meself. Tomorrow is the beach, that should be fun.