The rudest awakening yet in Yokohama. The parento-san (manager) started playing a pop-music radio station over the PA system at 7am. I wandered around a bit after leaving the hostel, going past a huge hotel, with an equally huge ferris wheel (in the Guinness book of records) next to it, then wandered down to the park, then to China Town to look around, then to the main “shopping street”.

I found a dealer there, whom I eventually bought my MD recorder from. I called VISA to inquire where I could find an ATM, and got directed to another store near Yokohama Station. On the way to catch the train to THAT store, I found a PLUS system ATM on my own and grabbed 60,000 yen. I took the train back to Yokohama station, then looked around the shopping center. For lunch, I visited a store in the bottom of one of the Departos, and really burned the inside of my mouth on this deep-fried, battered chicken-pasta dish. I should’ve given it a few more minutes to cool down I guess. We just don’t get meals cooked like that in North America, so I was totally unprepared for how searingly hot it would be.

I decided to give Nami’s sister, Yuki-san, a call that evening, which was pretty cool. Yuki’s english isn’t nearly as good as Nami’s (but Yuki-san lives in Japan, and Nami lives in Vancouver, so I suppose that’s quite understandable!). Yuki (from what I could tell on the phone) seems a lot like Nami – in fact her voice pattern was so similar to Nami’s that it was really easy to make the family connection. She was very patient, as I struggled with my Japanese, trying to have a bit of a conversation. I couldn’t really figure out how to end off my call to Yuki gracefully, so I just had to use the “bye bye” technique. Not particularly elegant, but it worked. Yuki-san recognized my name when I mentioned it, so I assumed that Nami must’ve notified (warned her) that I might call.