My bestest weekend ever (III)

Simple is more

Basically, I was blessed by the God of weather throughout the whole trip in Japan. The air was cool and crisp, puffy clouds were up high the blue skies, and despite some minor and short sprinkles of rain in the late evenings, the weather would turn back sunny again the following morning.
Sunday morning, Yui was coming over to meet us and have breakfast with ojiichan’s place for breakfast. Yui arrived around 9, after elections because she’s a good fellow citizen and wants to exercise her civilian rights for the very first time. I want that too!!! I’m 24 years old and I’ve never voted before…
Anyway, we headed to Yokohama, a place relatively newly developed. Right as we got off the Yokohama station, I was impressed by the new architectures surrounding the area. Modern, clean and crisp skyscrapers standing amidst well-developed chic district adorned with distinctive landmarks. Well, basically the whole Tokyo is like that, yet each city’s design, atmosphere, and how it’s presented is so different from each other it’s exceptionally unique.
Our first stop in Yokohama was in a mall. Not just any mall, but this mall had what I’ve been craving for 2 years—Cold Stone!! Aw~ how I missed their ice cream~ We shared a Strawberry Banana Rendezvous, and oh yeah~ it felt like paradise. Supposedly, Cold Stone’s opening a store in Taiwan, but I haven’t seen any yet… I want more Cold Stone!!!

Once we consumed our necessary nutrition/energy, we strolled towards the pier, passing by Landmark building (the tallest building in Yokohama, very impressive), by a ship that was left from the expo years ago (now a new site for flea market, yay!), and through another pathway filled with cherry trees. There were so many couples and families out that day, either enjoying between themselves, spending some good time with the kids, or walking their dogs. Seemed that we were the only “noisier” ones around, but hey! They were MY dates. Next by the pier, there stood 2 red-bricked buildings in a giant plaza (I call it the Red Square), and coincidently, that pace was celebrating its 5 yr Birthday, and for this reason, the plaza was filled with colorful flowers, attracting even more tourists like us. We took a few pictures of the flowers and with the flowers, also saw Bay Bridge from afar, later we window shopped in the red building. I originally planned to just window shop, but we found a cheap store where I contributed 2000 yen for a jewelry box and a new pair of sunglasses. Me like~

Junjun joined us after she finished her part of the shopping spree at the flea market, then we all walked again, in the park, this time to Yokohama’s famous Chinatown. We had Chinese ramen and some gyozas, however I wouldn’t leave Chinatown without tasting some Nikuman! (meat buns) But we were so full! But I craved for nikuman! But we were so full…But nikuman… Finally we found mini nikuman place so we could indulge in the savory juice of the nikumans without being at risk of exploding.

The Japanese Chinatown was very touristy, everywhere and everything you see was eh… food. A lot of nikuman, a lot of shiaolongpaos, a lot of dimsum. Food food food all over the place!
Since we couldn’t eat anymore, we actually got sick of Chinatown very soon, and switched the location to a different neighborhood right next to Chinatown (just across a bridge). Funny thing is, once we reached there, the first thing we looked for was a coffee shop to sit down. Haha, I think we aren’t far from the age where we need to sit down 1hr for every 30 min we walk =P

My order there was a sesame milk latte and a mont blanc (chestnut cake dessert), then we had a matcha latte, a regular latte and a strawberry latte on the table. The mont blanc wasn’t as impressive as I’d thought, because they always look so good on tv! The thick creamy chestnut/hazelnut cream topping layered over a soft spongy cake… Not that it was bad, but I guess I’ve expected too highly bout it. But the sesame latte~! Oh wow… that was really something. Don’t go ew when you hear sesame and latte, because it is very GOOOOOD~~~ who’d have thought?! And… why does coffee match with so many different flavors! I love coffee.

And I love coffee + friends! We sat in the coffee store chillaxing for hours, with no special plan in mind, but just enjoying each other’s company (and recovering from the walks, haha). If only these kind of things can happen more often…

Daikanyama was our next location, and who’s the best person to take us around there but our fashionable Kamechan?! Daikanyama is a trendy neighborhood with expensive clothing boutiques. Expensive but very pretty nonetheless, feels a bit like Soho in NY. For dinner, we ate spaghetti with chopsticks, yay for fusion food~! And yay for spaghetti! That’s another food that goes well with many other ingredients.Since all stores were closed by the time we got out of the restaurant, plus it was drizzling, so we didn’t stay out long, said final goodbye to Kamechan and hit back to ojiichan’s place for my suitcases for I was switching to hotel Chez Yui that night. I really didn’t want to say good bye to ojiichan tho… He was such a sweetheart! Ojiichan~ come visit Taiwan when you have the chance, ok? And thank you so much again for everything!

Yui’s place is near Haneda airport (old intl. airport), located at very convenient place: across the street from the station, next to the grocery store and above a take out place. Heh, she has everything she needs! Her apartment is not big or lavish, but cozy, some people think it’s too small, but I see it perfect for single person. At least I feel that it would be a perfect size for me. Being Yui’s place, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see everything GREEN. Green curtains, green sheets, green kitchen shade, green carpet, her green M&M… Yeah, pretty easy to get the whole picture.

The whole apartment thing made me reminisce our Northgate days, when and where we both would do goofy things together, laugh at each other, and have fun even if we were dealing with the most boring thing. Good times. I miss them dearly.

The apartment can fit another person, I think. Hm… maybe I can take Yui’s suggestion and live with her again.