Top Rated Attractions in Yokohama

On the corner of a street very close to the BayStars monument, you'll find an engraved stone monument with a metal etching of an Edison-type generator. This monument commemorates the coal-fired power plant that used to be on this site. The plant was built by the Yokohama Kyodo Electric Light Company. It began supplying electricity to 700 houses in the city in 1890. -AH

The stone monument in Yokohama Park is a reminder that Yokohama Park was the first such park opened in Japan for the use of both foreigners and Japanese. It was designed by Richard Henry Brunton, a Scottish engineer (his statue also stands in the park), after fire destroyed the area in 1866. The park was opened in 1871 and included a cricket ground. In 1923, the park provided a refuge to people after the Great Kanto Earthquake and in 1929 a baseball stadium was built. The current stadium was opened in 1978.

This large copper etching on the wall shows a cheering BayStars team. It is surrounded by the hand prints of the team and commemorates 1998, the year the Yokohama BayStars won the Japanese Baseball Grand Championships. This part of the street is nicknamed BayStars Street. -AH

Standing side by side on the Kannai side of Yoshidabashi Bridge are two iron monuments. One has a map of the early settlement of Yokohama on it and the other has a picture of the first iron bridge that stood here. The bridge was built in 1869 by Henry Brunton, a Scottish engineer, who was also responsible for many lighthouses in the region, the design of Yokohama Park and the layout of Nihon Odori. It was built at the request of the Kanagawa governor, and at a time when bridges were traditionally made of wood and replaced regularly, such a strong and durable construct would have been quite amazing. Across the road, standing on the now concrete bridge, is a pillar. It marks the checkpoint on Yoshida Bridge that was established soon after the opening of the port in 1859 to protect foreigners living in the settlement. -AH

Outside the Yokohama District Public Prosecutors Office on the Nihon Odori crossing is a stone monument with an electric wave pattern etched on it. This stone commemorates the first instance of successful telegraphing in Japan, which was over a distance of 2200 feet (670 meters) between the present Kanagawa District Court and the Yokohama Coast Guard Headquarters in 1869. The following year, telegraph lines were completed between Yokohama and Tokyo and a telegraph service was started. However, the lines were often cut or poles pulled down as the process was not understood and was called "black magic." This monument was erected in 1963 by the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation, along with another in Tokyo. -AH

This metallic monument resembling an early camera outside Gold's Gym on Bashamichi is a tribute to Renjo Shimo-oka, who set up a photography studio here after learning the skills of photography from Henry Heusken, a Dutchman and interpreter for the first US Ambassador to Japan. Shimo-oka photographed the SS America, which caught fire while berthed in Yokohama and experimented with night photography. Shimo-oka's first studio was in Noge. He moved to this site in 1868. -AH