Strawberries and Noodles in Yokohama

This was our final full day in Japan. It was extremely sad to think about this, so we tried not to as we dressed up one last time and jumped on the train to Yokohama to visit their famous Strawberry Festival. I don't know if you can tell by the amount of photos of strawberry sweets you've seen in this blog so far, but I love strawberries. This festival was actually part of the reason we chose to visit Japan on the dates that we did. We were meant to go earlier but plans changed, so we just managed to slip it in at the last moment! And boy was it worth it.

The Yokohama Strawberry Festival is held in the Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse. Which is, well, a red brick warehouse on the waterfront. The festival consisted of both an indoor portion full of food stalls, and an outdoor portion with food trucks, as well as pretty statues and displays to take photos with.

Japanese strawberries are no joke. They are incredibly sweet and juicy. The festival actually had charts dotted around to show you the sweetness level of each strawberry, as well as highlighting where they were grown and who they were grown by. Strawberries in Japan are largely grown in glasshouses which is why they are able to be considered a "winter" fruit. Unlike in most countries where they are firmly a summer only fruit. It was very novel to have things such as strawberry hot chocolate or any kind of warm strawberry dessert on a cold winter day.

Once we'd eaten as many strawberry goodies as we possibly could, we sat on the waterfront for a bit and tried to figure out what to do next. I didn't know how long the strawberry festival would take, so we didn't plan anything else for the day. So I asked auntie Google what's fun to do in Yokohama and the first thing it showed me was the Cup Noodle Museum!!!

The Cup Noodle Museum was so silly and fun. I've never been so excited to have noodles advertised to me. I'd highly recommend it if you have a couple of hours to kill in Yokohama, or are visiting with school aged children. The majority of exhibits were for kids, but because Koinuko and I are simply slightly-better-dressed-than-average manchildren, it worked out quite well for us.

My favourite thing was actually seeing all of the old instant noodle packaging. It was really cool to see how the packaging changed over the years. I also enjoyed the funny little "restaurant" where you could order various cup noodles. Koinuko ordered a "Cup Noodle Parfait" which we assumed would be a regular sweet parfait but decorated to look like cup noodles. WRONG. It was a cup noodle flavoured parfait. Noodle flavoured ice cream topped with little bits of dried carrot and beef. I did not like it and refused to eat it, but Koinuko is a freak so she finished it off for me.

The Cup Noodle Museum also has a gift shop full of deeply unserious merch. I picked up some note papers that folded into tiny noodle cups and the whole thing felt very "thing vs thing from Japan". It was great.

After the gift shop, there wasn't much else to do. It's a decently wrong train ride from Yokohama to Ikebukuro, so we decided to just go back to home base one last time and look for dinner. We found our dinner in the form of an adorable hole in the wall gyoza restaurant called Senjo Handmade Gyoza Shop. The restaurant is operated by an adorable Taiwanese lady who even speaks English!! You simply sit down and pay and she brings you out some tea and some gyoza she thinks would suit you. When she gave us our plates she told us they were "pretty spring gyoza for pretty young girls" T0T I could have cried. Whoever said flattery gets you nowhere is wrong. If you're in Ikebukuro and in the mood for gyoza please visit this lovely woman's store.

After dinner we had one last round at the arcade in an attempt to rid ourselves of our remaining yen. In the end I was buying totally random gacha just to use up the last of my coins lol. And then the time came. We were just too tired to go on. So we reluctantly headed home to pack our bags and go to sleep...

Conclusion

On the morning of the 28th of February we dressed, grabbed our absurdly heavy suitcases and made the chaotic journey back to the airport. We laughed a lot, sniffled a bit and grumbled at how much junk we'd bought. When we finally arrived at the airport station, we had one last hug before running off to our respective terminals.

Of all of the teenage dreams I fulfilled during this trip, the thing that impacted me the most was actually getting to meet Koinuko in person! I'd never met an international online friend before. Living in New Zealand, it was just something I never thought possible. But we did it! Two loser girls from other sides of the planet met through their mutual love of making websites and anime boys and that mutual love took us all the way to another country! This trip was an adventure I will never forget.

When we made that prayer to meet again someday at Tsurugaoka Hachimangu shrine, we were both well aware of the big changes that were occurring in the world. Changes that could possibly make it hard for us to ever meet in person again. I still have hope that we'll be able to scrape up the cash and meet up again. In Japan or perhaps another country! But even if we never do see each other again, we'll always have Valentines in Ikebukuro.

Thank you so much for coming with me. I hope to see you again.