On August 10th, we took a day trip to Yokohama from Tokyo. It was our first time visiting! Even though Yokohama is close to Tokyo and can be reached by local train, we didn’t go to it during our first Japan trip two years ago.

Our first stop was the Ramen Museum, which was really less of a museum and more of a food theme park. The main attraction is the basement area that is a replica of Shitamachi (an area of Tokyo) around 1958, when ramen was becoming popular. Within this replica are 9 mini ramen restaurants that represent different regions of Japan.

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The past few Japan posts have been about my stay in the Tohoku region, with us staying in Sendai and taking day trips from there. You might remember that back in 2011, Japan was hit by a major earthquake and tsunami, and the Tohoku region was greatly affected. It took many lives and caused a terrible amount of destruction. It was especially bad along the Sanriku Coast, and I wanted to make sure I visited a couple cities along it. It’s been 5 years, so the cities have mostly bounced back since, but any tourism helps these areas!

On August 8th, we visited Shiogama, which is on the Sanriku Coast and is largely known for its fishing industry. It’s also known for having highest number of sushi restaurants per capita in Japan! We started by looking around the fish market, and though I read you could order sushi and food there, we didn’t find many places.

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