Spot guide · Yokohama 横浜
Photo: Jorge Láscar from Australia / CC BYJapan's largest Chinatown, and it exists for a specific reason: when the port opened in 1859, Western firms and Japanese merchants could not understand each other, but Chinese clerks could read the same characters as the Japanese. The trading houses brought them, they brought their families, and the quarter has never left.
Ten decorated gates mark it. At the centre is Kanteibyo, a temple to Guan Yu — worshipped as the god of commerce because he was famously incapable of breaking a promise, which is a pointed choice for a district built by middlemen.
Walk from Osanbashi, graze, walk back. No transport at all.
Chinatown plus the Red Brick Warehouse and Kannai fills the window.
Sankeien in the morning, then here.
About twenty minutes on foot from Osanbashi Pier, entirely flat. From Daikoku Pier you must use the shuttle bus — there is no walking exit from that berth — so check the return timetable before you set out.
Eat standing: butaman pork buns from a street steamer, Kiyoken shumai, and tanghulu candied fruit. If you want the genuinely local dish, look for sanma-men — ramen under a thickened stir-fry of pork and bean sprouts, invented in this city and rarely on tourist menus.
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