My latest piece for The Japan Times(Weekend), in print and online, takes readers off the well-trodden path of Yokohama Chinatown and into Kannai and Kangai — the historic district just beyond Minato Mirai’s glow that was once the real heart of the city.
The piece traces its origins back to a Tokugawa-era checkpoint that split the area in two, and follows its evolution into today’s Isezakicho, Fukutomicho and Nogecho: a stretch of Sichuan kitchens, a century-old noodle shop still perfecting its dockworker-born sauce, Korean diners tucked beside neon-lit alleys, and yakitori counters where strangers strike up conversation without even trying.
Woven throughout are the words of Arimine Nosu, a lifelong Yokohama resident whose daily rounds through these streets became my guide to the city locals actually eat in.
I leave you with this: the real Yokohama was never in the guidebooks pointing you toward Chinatown. It’s a few minutes’ walk beyond it.
Please click [here] to read.
