Sunday in Chinatown

Some of my classmates and I visited Chinatown (aka 中華街 chuukagai） yesterday after our class. We went from Shibuya by train on the Toyoko Line that connects to the spunky new Minatomirai 21 Line in Yokohama and took about 35 mins. The fare is 460 JPY one way for the full 28.3 Km ride.

The streets are lined with restaurants and groceries. Street food is available but not anywhere close to those you'd get in Hong Kong or Taiwan. Two prominent items I see being sold and with people lining up for are: nikuman肉まん (or its variety the あんまんanman ) and broiled ｃhestnuts (甘栗amaguri).

The nikuman is basically the 'dabao' 大包 one would find common in Shanghai. While the anman is a similar bun it's got a sweet red bean filling. The nikuman I got wasn't bad at all, reminds me of the 'bola-bola siopao' sold near school back when I was in Manila.

chuugakai

Busy Chinatown street. Probably the cleanest Chinatown in the world :)

chuugaka_gate2

My Latino classmates.

For lunch, we went to this chinese restaurant with about 10 tables spread across three floors. There were dimsum (pork, beef, shrimp dumplings, srping rolls), a variety of stir-fried dishes and of course the ever famous chinese dish 'sweet and sour pork' and the 'mixed fried rice'.

I must admit I wasn't disappointed at all. It was as bad as I'd expected :-)

Somewhere in the middle of Chuugakai is a temple (関帝廟 kanteibyou) dedicated to Guan Yu ( 関羽）, a famous historical person from the Three Kingdoms (三国）. It was a good day except for the rain which made the cold day, so much colder.

temple_gate

The main gate to the Kanteibyou. The temple was constructed in 1873.

guanyu

A snapshot of the interior.

I also dropped by Shibuya on my way home (since the train from Chuugakai stops there) and took this picture with the statue of a famous Akita (a native Japanese breed) named Hachiko (ハチ公).

phil_shibuya

In a nutshell, Hachiko was a dog who would wait for his master at the train station everyday. One day, his master, after leaving the station to work, fell ill and died. Hachiko, oblivious to his master's death, continued to wait at the station everyday for a span of over 10 years not knowing his master will never return until he finally died. The people who saw Hachiko everyday learned about this and were so moved they erected a statue in memory of Hachiko.

Read about Hachiko: http://www.fabuloustravel.com/globe/hachiko/hachiko.html.