A ferris wheel ride

Photos:

• Top left: Tokyo Bay from Minato Mirai
• Top right: looking back towards Minato Mirai from the waterfront
• Bottom left: remaining foundations of a building that was destroyed in the 1914 earthquake
• Bottom right: Minato Mirai at night
  

So technically I live in Yokohama, Japan, but yesterday I actually went to the city center for the first time in the nearly 5 weeks that I've lived here. I'm in Tokyo everyday and going to Yokohama actually made me realize just how big Tokyo really is. It was the first time in over a month that I was in a public area that wasn't swarming with people. Kind of peaceful at times.

Laura and I started out at Yokohama station and went to Yodobashi, a HUGE electronics store; I've already picked out the first purchase I'm going to make after I get my paycheck in two weeks. The amount of stuff you can get there is overwhelming.

After Yodobashi, we got back on the train and went two stops to a place called Minato Mirai. Very nice. Lots more open spaces, interesting shops to look at, and an incredible view of the bay. We finished up our trip there by taking a ride on the ferris wheel you see in the pictures. It's supposed to be possible to see Mt. Fuji from there, which is something I still have yet to see because we were on the ferris wheel at night. The ferris wheel itself is made to represent a clock (you can probably even read the time on the clock in the pic on the top right), so there are 60 cars to ride in that each represent one second on the clock. The whole structure is so big that it takes 15 minutes to get all the way around.