Yamashita Park

The park is made of the earthquake. After the Great Kanto earthquake flattened Yokohama in 1923, the city had to put the rubble somewhere, so it was dumped along the waterfront and landscaped, and the park opened in 1930. You are walking on the remains of the old city.

Moored at the seaward edge is the Hikawa Maru, a passenger liner launched in 1930 that ran the Yokohama to Seattle route, carried Charlie Chaplin among many others, served as a hospital ship in the war, survived it, and is now permanently berthed as a museum. Going aboard is worth the entry fee: the first-class dining saloon and the art deco stair are intact, and the engine room is open.

The rose garden along the middle of the park holds around 190 varieties and peaks twice, in May and again in October. It was replanted and expanded in 2016 and is one of the best public rose collections in the country.

Landmarks: the Girl with Red Shoes statue, from a well-known children's song about a girl taken abroad by a foreigner; the Indian Water Tower, given by Yokohama's Indian community after the earthquake; and the Marine Tower behind the park, which reopened in 2022 after a renovation.

The view is the reason to sit down. Bay Bridge spans the harbour to the east, ships work in the middle distance, and at night the whole thing lights up. It is free and open at all hours.

Chinatown is a five-minute walk inland, the Red Brick Warehouses are ten minutes west along the water, and the sea bus runs from here to Minato Mirai, which is a better way to cover that distance than walking it.