Celebrating National Foundation Day in Chinatown

February 11th is a national holiday - National Foundation Day!  The holiday celebrates the foundation of Japan and the accession of its first emperor.  Since February 11 was on Sunday, my husband had Monday off of work to celebrate the holiday.  There isn't a specific way to celebrate National Foundation Day, so we decided that spending time together and going on an adventure would be a good way to spend the holiday.

We decided to go to Yokohama's Chinatown.  It took over an hour to get there and included 4 trains!  But as soon as we arrived, we decided the travel was well worth it.  Yokohama's Chinatown is one of the brightest, cleanest, most aesthetically pleasing Chinatown's I have ever been to (and I've been to a lot of them).  The gates, and there were several, were all incredibly decorated.  Vibrant colors and lots of etchings welcomed us into the neighborhood.  Even the local koban (police office) was decorated beautifully.

Several of the buildings had interesting decorations affixed to the front of them. 

Of course, the food was a major draw.  Many of the restaurants had a stand out front where they sold a couple items.  We stood in line to purchase pan fried xiao long bao (pork dumplings with hot broth inside), hum bow, and peking duck in a crepe.

The xiao long bao was very delicious, but the first bite proved to be a classic mistake on my part when I shot the juice all over my son's hair!  He was not very impressed and I had quite the chore of trying to get all the meat  juice out of his hair while standing on the street and only having those wretched tissues with me.  I did the best I could, but he did have crusty hair for the remainder of the day.  After I apologized and told him it was an accident, he looked me squarely in the eye and said "never do that again!"  My husband on the other hand kept laughing periodically all day every time he thought about my "amazing aim."

The street was pretty crowded, but not too much to feel overwhelmed.  Since the weather was so nice, it was great to walk around with all the people.  We wandered through a couple shops that sold Chinese gifts.  Then we found more food.

The shumai on a stick was okay.  I wish we had put some Chinese mustard on it.  Our son enjoyed a panda hum bao filled with chocolate.  He thought it was great.  We didn't like it.  But the egg tart and coconut tart more than made up for it.  They were delicious!  Unfortunately, just as we ordered a huge line formed behind us.  Otherwise, we would have gone back and gotten more of the egg tarts to take home with us!

While wandering around, we stumbled upon a Chinese temple.  Everything was decorated with elaborate carvings.  It was breathtaking.

After about an hour and a half, we were done exploring Chinatown.  Honestly, there aren't a ton of shops to peruse.  The rest is just restaurant after restaurant.  So we spent the rest of the day taking our time getting home.  But that is a story for another day.