Lots of folks are disembarking the ship in a hurry and heading straight to the airport for flights home. I don’t need that kind of stress in my life, so we have an extra day in Yokohama. 

The taxi situation at the cruise port in Tokyo was so efficient. Truly impressive. And then our taxi driver got slightly lost because of some construction on the way to the hotel and actually *refunded* money to us to compensate for the extra time.

Yokohama Frühlingsfest

We arrived in Yokohama and immediately noticed massive crowds around the area of our hotel. At first, we assumed we’d stumbled onto another protest. We have an uncanny ability to find protests wherever we travel, so it seemed like a perfectly reasonable conclusion.

Turns out it was the Yokohama Frühlingsfest (Spring Festival). Definitely didn’t have that on my bingo card for today. All German beer and food, Biergarten style. Scanning the crowd, I can confirm Ken was the most German person there. The beer was good. The pretzel was meh.

Every human being in Yokohama was at the festival. Wall-to-wall humanity. And you know how much I love a crowd situation. 

The festival was held near the old red-brick customs house, which has since been transformed into a charming (and extremely crowded) shopping center. Since we still had just a liiiitttttle bit of room left in our suitcases, I interpreted that as a personal shopping challenge and waded into the crowds.

I’m heading home with these adorable kokeshi dolls. Even better, I also hit the Japanese perfume jackpot. I bought more than one bottle. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that. 😉

HUGE street parade this afternoon. The big attraction was Mickey Mouse doing a drive-by. You would have thought it was Beatlemania 1964 the way these folks swooned. 🤷‍♀️ 

Walked through something called Yokohama World Porters. What a fresh hell. Part Japanese Chuck E Cheese, part arcade, part Dollar Store. Could not get out of there fast enough.

One more run through the Japanese convenience store ISO unusual candy for Anna. Mission Accomplished. 

Japanese Subculture: Oshikatsu

OK, forget what I said about Mickey Mouse mania. We stumbled straight into a Japanese sub-culture meet-up. Hundreds of these teenage girls – all wearing some version of this outfit, and carrying some version of this handbag.

The bags are called ita bags—handbags covered in buttons, keychains, and other merchandise featuring a favorite character. Essentially: I love this character so much, I turned my purse into a shrine. The name itself is a bit of a joke. In Japanese, ita means painful. On one hand, they’re painful to look at because they’re so over-the-top. On the other hand, they’re painful to your wallet after you’ve spent hundreds of dollars collecting enough merch to cover the entire bag.

The bags are part of a much bigger phenomenon called oshikatsu – literally, supporting your favorite. Your oshi is the fictional character, musician, idol, or performer you passionately root for, and katsu refers to the activities you do to support them. It’s fandom elevated to a lifestyle.

Fascinating culture study.

There’s a wedding reception at our hotel this evening. Many of the guests are in traditional kimonos. Just look how beautiful these ladies are. ❤️

Tomorrow: ✈️ HOME!