...continued from part I...
After a full morning of stuffing our faces with food... we decided to take a break from eating to go check out this old brick building they turned into a shopping mall. Funny thing is...we ended up stumbling upon the annual "Yokohama Octoberfest" and found ourselves in a sea of extremely happy Japanese people holding giant mugs of beer and eating hot dogs. *crazy*
I kept having to stop and ask myself...wait, where am I right now? Am I in a very european looking Japan? or am I in Europe with a lot of Japanese people? trippy.
Despite the common notion that Japanese people are timid and quiet (some definitely are), there is also a very active and social quality to the Japanese. They like to get out and go places, often times with their whole family in tow. At this Octoberfest I was surprised to see a lot of grandmas, grandpas, babies, toddlers...all walking around together enjoying the party. I saw a few moms carrying their babies in their ergos and simultaneously holding beer! ha!
It was a madhouse in the main tent, and being the non-alcohol consuming person that I am I was really just in search of some good french fries or nachos haha. Anyway, after experiencing Octoberfest we walked down to the water to check out some cool architecture and probably the coolest building I've seen in Japan thus far...
THIS. AMAZING RIGHT? It's a loading station for buses and boats I believe...and basically one of the coolest buildings I've ever seen. What I loved about it is the way they made the roof of the building it's own separate park area - how cool and genius is that!?
I'll definitely be visiting Yokohama again!