In the craft beer world there are many stories of brewers leaving behind various careers to turn homebrewing hobbies into their new livelihood. Tomas Rehak, brewer and co-owner of Ebina Beer, has a rather interesting past. For 20 years he was an accomplished tuba player performing in the Prague Symphony Orchestra and Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. Not only did he make a move to a completely different career, for an added degree of difficulty he simultaneously relocated from the Czech Republic to Japan to open his brewery. Rehak says he developed a fondness for Japan when he first toured the country…
Author: Seasider
As the name implies, MacKenDy Craft Beer & Pizza specializes in two pub classics: pizza and beer. Both are made on premises in this chill, open-kitchen brewpub in Chigasaki. The atmosphere is the norm for Shonan–casual with friendly regulars likely to chat you up. The foreign sounding name actually derives from a mix of the names of three friends that started the brewpub: Macoto Tsuchiya, Kennosuke Nohara and Eddie Murakami (‘Dy’ taking the place of ‘die’). For your main dish choose from about eight different styles of mouth-watering pizza prepared and baked in a wood-fired oven in front of your…
The weather is getting cooler and autumn is just around the corner… Which means, if you like beer, your thirst for the beverage is bound to continue! (Is it ever over?) For the last 7 or 8 years, September has been our “Beer Month” issue. BeerFes Yokohama kicks off this month at Osanbashi, followed by Akarenga’s massive Oktoberfest at the beginning of next month. To keep with this theme, we feature two relatively new craft beer spots this issue. The Yokohama area was already beer-centric, but it just keeps getting more so. If you don’t drink, that’s fine. We could…
Most information is free these days. Thank the internet for that. There are also free print publications like the Yokohama Seasider (though we offer free digital downloads on our website and on ISSUU). Usually, information is free because it’s being monetized somehow. We take ads, for example. On the internet, it’s similar but more complicated. What I’m concerned about, however, is the provenance of free information–who creates it and why. The information we provide is produced locally by people who call Yokohama home. By people who love Yokohama. We’re doing it so you can enjoy a better life here. Thanks…
If you have visited all of Hakone’s main tourist spots and want to take a break from crowded trains, or maybe just seek a good way to burn calories, the Yusakamichi Hiking Course should cover you. This 9.5km trail takes you from the Yumoto area to Motohakone on Lake Ashi. Depending on your pace and rest stops, the entire trip will take about four to five hours. Out of Yumoto Station, follow the main road (Route 1) heading toward Miyanoshita. About five minutes out of the station you’ll cross a bridge. Around 50m past the bridge the trail climbs up…
No matter who it is, before starting a new life overseas, people conjure all kinds of images of how it will unfold–images of a life glamorous and exciting, but also not without challenges; of a life stimulated by people from an array of cultural backgrounds, or by friends who are eager to try something new. In reality, life overseas is not just about experiences that far exceed what you imagined. It also has its fair share of disappointment, at least according to Minoru Kai, the director of bilingual preschool Cosmo Global Kids. “Even among Japanese who go through all the…
You may have noticed that we ran several longer, two-page articles in the Yokohama Seasider this year. After testing the waters with those, we’ve decided to commit to the format each issue. Especially when writing about people, we wanted more space to tell their stories. We think this will be more compelling to you, the reader, too. For this issue, for example, we do a spread on the individuals behind the local business networking group Hamahashikai. As we often do in this introduction, they encourage you to get out and explore more neighborhoods of our great city. Two pages is…
Hamahashikai, directly translated as “seaside bridge gathering/council”, is a group of young locals in their 30s and 40s working together to create a network between their respective communities in Yokohama. Every year in November, they hold a major event called the Unga (Canal) Parade, which began seven years ago as an effort to raise awareness, increase utility and revive the transportation system for the canals that run throughout the city. Hamahashikai also aims to create a better canal environment by implanting artificial reefs and conducting research on how to make it cleaner and more efficient. They further plan on using…
When you’re dining at Cafe & Bar Bottle Ship in its nautical-themed white and blue interior with a cocktail in hand, you feel like you’re on board a luxury cruiser. The ceiling was intentionally built low in order to create such an atmosphere, says owner Megumi Shirakawa. She’s joined by manager and bartender Keisuke Furubayashi, who mixes up an array of drinks and entertains his customers with impressive bartending skills. Unsurprisingly, original cocktails are his recommendation (¥700~). One that left me with lingering delight was the loquat fruit cocktail–a tea liqueur infused with the sweet, tangy flavor of loquats. Other…
Sake and soba. It’s a classic combination in some parts of Japan (Ibaraki, for example, comes to mind). And it’s a feature of the menu at the relatively new Ichi in Bashamichi. But there’s much more to the menu than this. Let’s climb the stairs to the elegant interior and have a look… Our search for a sake joint in the neighborhood was what led to our discovery of Ichi so we’ll start here. The selection is not expansive; there were four Kanagawa jizake (local, craft sake), and five sake from other regions of Japan. But the list was well…