Welcome to the 9th anniversary edition of the Yokohama Seasider! I can still remember where I was when I first wrote this greeting many years ago (it was a coffee shop in the Sakuragicho area). In fact, many of my memories of Yokohama are connected with stories I wrote and pictures I took for this magazine. Nine years is a long time and I think I’m most proud of the team I assembled to help me keep this going. This magazine is theirs as much as it is mine. We’ve been thinking recently that we should open up the magazine…
Author: Seasider
On February 16 we welcome in the year of the dog. According to the Chinese zodiac, the toshi-otoko and toshi-onna (men and women born under the current sign) of the year are said to be loyal, friendly and honest. These sound like just the type of people you’d like to spend a day or night out on the town with. All these lucky “dogs” will get their chance to celebrate with friends during the Chinese New Year festivities. Yokohama has the fortune of being one of only three cities in Japan that has a Chinatown, and as the locals know,…
Every year in January a new group of youth move into adulthood in the Coming of Age ceremonies that take place across the country. On January 8th young adults in their 20th year will celebrate with their classmates in their hometowns, some reuniting after many years apart. May they enjoy the moment. As the new year dawns most of us find ourselves putting the problems of the past year in the rearview mirror and plotting a bright, new course for 2018. Seeing the smiles on the faces of those young men and women following in our footsteps allows us to…
When you do a search for the word “creator” you find the following: God; founder; people involved in general production; ad designers. That is to say, photographers, designers, stylists and makeup artists are all creators. Musicians undoubtedly qualify. Recently, my team shot a video of the 4-member band “Nakamura Parking”. Making music videos is the collaborative effort of a variety of “creators”. Striking a delicate balance between everyone’s creative input is a challenge. This can be a blast if everyone is on the same page, but if not, it can be a grueling process. I produced another video a few…
Every year Yokohama hosts one of the biggest and best craft beer festivals in the country, called Japan Brewers Cup. Yokohama seems like an appropriate host city, as it was home to Japan’s first beer breweries, including Spring Valley Brewery (now Kirin), which opened in 1870. Yokohama also has several respectable craft breweries, and roughly two dozen craft beer specialty bars, most of them within a few blocks of each other in Naka-ku. Shinya Suzuki, founder-brewer of Yokohama Bay Brewing, is the festival’s organizer–yep, it’s locally run and not exactly corporate. It’s not a dull three days, either. 32 Japanese…
Noge has been an entertainment district for decades, known for cheap eats and drinks… and also for being a little decadent. It has largely cleaned up, due partly to new entrepreneurs moving in with updated restaurants that appeal to a newer generation, such as Noge West End. This cozy little joint a minute from Miyakobashi offers tasty grilled food, craft beer and domestic cider–yes, you heard that right. Japan’s fine alcohol producers (sake, whisky, craft beer) are making headlines internationally. Perhaps domestic cider producers will achieve the same. It’s time to explore. The menu features five rotating ciders for ¥900.…
When searching for a place to set up base, many entrepreneurs and small business operators immediately flock to Tokyo and end up spending excessively on rent and operations costs. Unfortunately, most are unaware of the quality workspaces Yokohama has to offer due to a notable lack of publicity, especially in languages other than Japanese. One place in the city that we can recommend in particular is Work Factory Yokohama. It was founded by Yokohama native, real estate guru, and entrepreneur Tomoya Yamada. Yamada wanted people to be “proud of their lifestyle”. He opened the space to enable people to optimize…
2017 marks the 350th anniversary of the Yoshidamachi area of Yokohama. Originally a field of rice paddies built on reclaimed land, it flourished when the Port of Yokohama was opened to the West in 1859. Like many historic parts of Yokohama, this lead to large-scale, cross-cultural exchange which transformed these areas into what they are today. Yoshidamachi is full of bars, restaurants, galleries and shops of all sorts. You can experience everything from the traditional to the modern in a highly concentrated area. It’s a particularly popular place for Hamakko (Yokohama locals) to hang out. A short 5-minute walk from…
It’s been about twenty years since I met Yoichiro Furuya. We were the same age and in our 30s. If you’re a cameraman in your 30s, you’re basically just getting started and don’t really know as much as you think. But at the time, I wanted to look cool so I talked about photography with swagger. I’m rather embarrassed to reflect now on how ignorant I actually was. But it was during this time that I met him. Now, as then, when fellow cameramen talk, they try to figure out how each other is doing, they engage in posturing to…
Turkish cuisine is richly flavored and quite varied, the result of being a confluence of many other cuisines, from the Balkans and Central Europe to the ancient cultures of the Middle East and Central Asia. Throughout Turkey, travelers can even enjoy a diverse array of regional foods. Yokohama residents can try many of these dishes in Ishikawa-cho at Ceyhan, a charming little restaurant run by friendly chef-owner Kemal Basmaci. Fluent in English and Japanese, Basmaci has created a menu that will please guests of many different tastes and dietary restrictions. If you’re timid and just want to test it out,…