We weren't sure what to do on New Years Day. Yokosuka was one option besides Shibuya, Tokyo Tower and Tokyo Sky Tree.
In the end we decided on Yokosuka because it actually had fireworks.
If the name Yokosuka sounds familiar to you, you might have heard it from Shenmue and they actually had a pamphlet showing the various real life locations in the map that appeared in the game.
Some yuru-kyara (mascot) at Yokosuka train station...
..for Shiki-shima, the luxury train that you have to apply to book a room and costs at least 750000 yen to get on. I'd rather spend that money living it up in an onsen in Hakone and eating all the expensive beef I can find.
There were a lot of yatais (food stalls) and there was even a stage for performances.
Waiting for the ships to launch the fireworks.
The ships blared their horns at midnight and away we go!
The fireworks show was decent but not as spectacular as what we get in Melbourne every year.
To be fair, New Years in Japan is more like Christmas in Australia. A day for people to go home to their families rather than stay up all night and party.
It took us 2 1/2 hours to get back to Shin Koiwa because the last train didn't go straight back for some reason.
Should have done Skytree instead.
At least I can say I've been to the hometown of Shenmue although I did not get to look around the town.
2 comments:
Did you have any trouble with travel and getting ryokan reservations in Kamakura at the peak holiday season? I'd love to see that lighting some year.
@anon re Kamakura, I did not have any trouble with travel and reservations. Its very easy to get there with the JR Sobu line which also goes to Yokosuka. No harm making bookings early as it does not cost money to book in Japan or cancel as long its not the day before.
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