A morning in Yokohama's Chinatown

On a cold, overcast, occasionally-rainy Sunday morning, I found myself in Yokohama's Chinatown for the first time. 

 Chinatown in Yokohama is the largest in Japan, and a tourist destination by itself. This particular trip, I focused mainly on the architecture.

There aren't really any attractions in Chinatown. There's plenty of Chinese-inspired architecture, and a lot of gifts to buy in stores.

 Japanese tourists are generally interested in the food, and Yokohama's Chinatown has lots of restaurants. Most of them serve the same items with just a bit of difference in the price. The real important part of your visit's meal is the quality. Do your research before you go and find a place that has good reviews. Most of the highly-themed restaurants serve crappy food to tourists who don't know any better, especially in their all-you-can-eat deals. These are similar to buffets except the food is freshly cooked and brought to your table as you order it, and sometimes is for only a certain period of time (i.e. 1 or 2 hours). While Chinese buffets in America run about $10 or less in most areas, these will cost you 2000 yen or more, so quality is very important. On a return trip, we ended up with a decent place, though I couldn't tell you how to find it! Even then, it's not fantastic.

 The only places to see that don't involve shopping or eating are the two temples. This is the most famous one: Kantei-byo Temple. This gate is very impressive!

 And the temple is just as ornate.

 I believe this is a fortune-telling booth. Insert money, take a fortune, enjoy. (If I'm wrong, someone correct me.) Temples make their money for upkeep on donations and purchases of religious items like fortunes.

 People actually worship at this temple, as you can see. I'm guessing this temple doesn't have much problem getting donations from all the visitors to Chinatown.

 The insides of temples tend to be very beautiful, and this is no different. Lots of gold, plenty of idols and artifacts. The grate in the front of the picture is a donation box where you can toss coins as an offering to the temple.

 Here's another view of the temple's gate, this time from the temple.

 Continuing on, a small, very busy side street has another signed gate. Note the street vendor in the lower left. In addition to restaurants one can buy plenty of street food, including egg rolls/spring rolls (harumaki) and steamed buns filled with various kinds of meat. I had an egg roll and a steamed bun on my first visit, which was enough to fill me up and relatively inexpensive. Despite being located every 10 feet down most streets, several had long lines. Unless you want to pay a lot of money to sit in a restaurant and do the all-you-can-eat option, I recommend just picking food up from the street vendors. A single steamed bun, egg roll, and drink should be enough for most people.

 Here's the other temple, though I don't know its name. Because of time constraints I didn't wander inside.

Steam pours out of a pot full of steamed buns down another side street.

As I said earlier, one could spend an entire day browsing through Chinatown, sampling food and looking in stores. Most will want to be there for just a morning. Note that Sundays are very crowded any time of year, even on drizzly wet days like you see above. Street food can be had for about 500 yen for a filling meal with a drink, while sit-down restaurant bills will come to 2000 yen or more per person! Remember that Chinatown is a tourist destination, and plan accordingly. It's worth a visit for the sights and smells alone. And you can buy some Chinese-style souvenirs while you're there.