I really love Yokohama. It is a city perfectly suited to our current situation. It is calm and pretty and convenient and very user-friendly. After Chennai, it is overtly hyper-first-world. Before Tokyo, it is quaint and homey and utterly manageable. It's really the perfect transition city and we're here for a perfect transition period of time. Yokohama will forever be my happy peaceful downtime space.

Yokohama is a very young city. It was opened to trade in 1858. Before that, it was basically a mud flat. Being a well-situated port with particularly deep waters, it became the hub of international trade and was chosen for such purposes by the Japanese in order to keep foreigners as isolated as possible. The Japanese government was reluctant to end its policy of isolationism and was determined to keep the new international trade from coming into contact with actual people. So Yokohama has been, throughout it's modern history, a foreigner settlement.

It was, like most of the region, completely flattened in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. At that time, the entire port was completely decimated. Like, flattened to the ground. There are very few things around here that predate that catastrophic event.

Today, Yokohama is still considered an international place. There are a lot of international schools and the port is still very active. Lots of folks around here even speak English, so my transition to Japanese has been eased too. One sees people from all over the world here, which is comforting to me and makes me feel less like a freak.

Of course, as fat as I am, I still attract a lot of attention from the little old Japanese ladies.

We live right by two major landmarks; Motomachi and Chukagai. Motomachi is the fancy shopping district where the posh Japanese folks from Tokyo come to buy posh things on holiday weekends. Daily, one is met by the odd spectacle of ladies in furs and heels, walking their Very Tiny Dogs around in doggy strollers. I had never seen a doggy stroller before. Right across the canal from our house, there is a doggy café, where doggies can stop for a small bite and a drink in the afternoon. I kid you not.

Chukagai is Chinatown. Japan's most extensive and famous Chinatown is right behind my house. It is quite aesthetically pleasing and, for a Chinatown, immaculately clean and organized. It does smack slightly of tourism, but what Chinatown doesn't? I mean outside of China, of course.

There are a number of lovely parks very near our house and we spend most evenings walking by the port. There are very neat piers to walk on and plenty of green things around. Add to this idyllic scene the astonishingly gorgeous fall weather and you have the makings of a very happy Beth. Even the neon glow of downtown, seen from the Osanbashi pier at night, looks charming here.

And I can see Mount Fuji from my kitchen window. How cool is that?

As I get more and more immobile, our walks get shorter, but I can still go a couple of miles.

Needless to say, we have everything that we could possibly need or want available to us here, though things are pretty expensive. Despite the cost, we sure do eat well.