The Best Walking Guide in Japan: Ishii or Isn't Shii?

Two of my dearest Japanese friends are named Reiko. This doesn't present a problem for my family - we've dealt with duplicate, triplicate, and quadruplicate names for most of our lives - but the rest of you might find it hard to tell the difference between my two Reikos. To make things a bit easier for you, henceforth I'll be referring to them by their family names.  This is actually the polite way to address a person here in Japan so good for me.

Some of my most memorable rambles around the Miura Peninsula have been at Ishii's side. We've explored the Sankeien Garden in Yokohama, teetered on a ridge high above Kamakura in search of wild camellias, and rubbed a metal bullock's nose in Kurihama to ward off senility. She's opened doors for me both literally and figuratively. Best of all, our strides match. For the first time since high school, I don't have to pause on every corner to wait for my walking partner to catch up with me.

A few weeks ago Ishii offered to show me the way to the Swany fabric store in Yokohama.  She didn't have to ask twice.  The following week she arrived for her "conversation lesson" with a suggested itinerary and the best English map of Yokohama I'd ever seen.  She even tilted the map a bit to the right when I questioned the lack of a compass in any of the corners.  Due North is rarely found at the top of guide maps in Japan.  I've learned this the hard way.

On the appointed day, last Wednesday, we rode an express train to Kamiooka, the last station before Yokohama, then hopped on a local train for Hinode-cho.  We had the option of exiting to the left or the right after the turnstiles.  Ishii shooed me through the door on the left and then we hustled across the road to the Fujiya shop.  The Fujiya confectionary company is 100 years old this year and its mascot, Peko-chan, is 60.  Just like Ishii.  Small world.

After checking out all the latest Peko-chan offerings, Ishii and I strolled down the avenue on the left of the shop.  We passed a block of nightclubs, dozens of restaurants, and all sorts of interesting little shops on our route to Isezaki Mall Shopping Street. 

I had many questions.  Ishii had all the answers.  "What is chaofan?" "Fried rice."

Just one block before Route 16, the main road that runs between Yokosuka and Yokohama, we turned into Isezaki Mall Shopping Street. This was the main shopping area for Yokohama until the waterfront was developed twenty or thirty years ago. Mall is used in the traditional sense in this case, i.e., pedestrian traffic only. (My brothers and sister surely remember when our own downtown was transformed into "Progress Place Mall", one of the saddest misnomers in modern memory.)

Heyday or no, the shopkeepers along Isezaki Street didn't seem at a loss for customers. We wandered into a hardware store and checked out frying pan prices since the ones we own are not suitable for steaming gyoza. The knives intrigued us but we have more to learn about knives in general and Japanese knives in particular before we make that purchase. Why, for instance, were Kyoko and Tsuneko both so interested in buying German knives when I took them to the Navy Exchange?

Ishii decided a snack was in order when we passed a table stacked with packages of various colored dried, um, well they looked like worms to me. These little sticks have been popping up in my path every month or so for three years now but I have always just turned up my nose and reached for the mushroom-shaped cookies instead. Have I mentioned that they look like worms? Ishii opted for the crackers flavored with burdock and we followed the clerk inside the shop to the cash register.

The shop was narrow but deep and refrigerated cases filled with every possible manifestation of tofu marched the entire length of the wall on the right. I'm not a big fan of tofu. Actually, I'm not a miniature fan of tofu. One glance at the tofu case and worms suddenly struck me as potentially palatable.  The burdock worms tasted like those sesame crackers often found in snack mixes.  Yes, I would eat them again.  Assuming a world shortage of mushroom-shaped cookies, of course.

No, Japanese man, I am not staring at you. I am trying to figure out what that digital device on the wall above you is measuring.

"That building is being reconstructed. The top number shows the noise level and the bottom number measures tremors. The construction company must take care not to cause damage to humans."

"This is the largest bookstore in Yokohama." "Really? Can we go in?" "Of course." Ishii checked the floor guide and ushered me to the basement where we found a small alcove filled with foreign language books, about half in English. Being able to read a floor guide is certainly a time-saver, noted the bookworm who normally trudges up to the top floor and works her way down in search of books in English. The books are shelved in alphabetical order by author. Oh, joy.

The bookstore marked the end of Isezaki Shopping Mall Street. We skirted around Kannai station to Yokohama Park, home of the Yokohama Bay Stars baseball team. The Ancient Mariner saw his first baseball game in Japan in this stadium but I'm an orange Y headband-wearing Giants' fan and my team plays in the Tokyo Dome. Still, maybe I can catch the Giants at Yokohama Park next summer.

This pretty fountain is on the opposite side of the stadium from Kannai station. The mist disappeared when we approached the fountain to investigate.

We were not the only people the fountain attracted.  Recreational painters are ubiquitous wherever flowers bloom.

The fountain overlooks Nihon O-dori, a major historical avenue erected as both a firebreak and to separate the neighborhood of foreigners from the rest of Yokohama.  Nihon O-dori is lined with majestic ginko trees and at this time of year that translates to hundreds of pulpy orange fruit underfoot.  Ishii was disappointed that the trees were not yet blazing their golden autumn colors but I am not in any rush for the seasons to change.

Nihon O-dori is lined with tall modern office buildings with shops and restaurants at ground level.  It was just noon and throngs of salarymen and -women were racing around with famished looks on their faces.  "Let's postpone lunch until after we visit Swany."  "Good plan."

The Yokohama Swany branch is smaller than the home store in Kamakura and is laid out, rather oddly, on the basement and third floor of a retail establishment midway between Nihon O-dori and Motomachi.  The fabric is delectable yet I did not purchase a single meter.  What I did do is fish a tattered saleslip out of my wallet and redeem it for two free patterns.  A skirt and trousers.  Snort.  Ishii says trousers are easy to make.  Double snort. 

A Japanese pattern is a not the cut-on-the-bold-lines fragile waxed tissue thing Grandma folded carefully before filing in her sewing cabinet.  No, it is a letter-size single sheet of paper featuring a sketch with lots of numbers in a table along the left.  Sewing in Japanese seems to involve more math than sewing in English.  I'll let you know.  Triple snort.
   

On to Chinatown for lunch.  We went to Ishii's favorite restaurant where I had fried rice (chaofan, remember?) and she had some sort of noodle pancake.  We exited Chinatown directly across from Motomachi, an upscale shopping district adjacent to the old foreign settlement.  Mostly we window-shopped but the bakery could not be resisted with all those smiling pumpkin pastries calling my name.

Home again, home again, jiggedy-jog.  Riding the trains with Ishii is an education in itself.  Americans tend to choose the simplest routes, using Yokohama station as a hub if you will.  But Ishii notes we can shave ten minutes off our trip and always travel in the proper direction by hopping on and off a few local trains and switching between the JR and Keikyu lines.

I am so blessed to know Ishii.