Yokohama & Minato Mirai in One Day
The villas of Yamate, a Chinatown lunch, the pier and Red Brick Warehouse, the Cup Noodles Museum and a sunset from the Landmark Tower over Minato Mirai.
Last updated 2026-09-03 · 1-day self-guided plan
Yokohama
Bluff, Chinatown, harbour front and a skyline sunset
For travellers wanting an easy day out of Tokyo with sea air and skyline, following the harbour from the old foreign settlement to the new towers.
- 1
Yamate Bluff and Motomachi
Take the Tokyu Toyoko Line from Shibuya, which runs through onto the Minatomirai Line, about 40 minutes to Motomachi-Chukagai; arrive around 9:30. Climb the hill behind the station to Yamate, where the foreign merchants of the port built villas with lawns and bay windows; several are open free, and Harbour View Park looks over the Bay Bridge. Come down through Motomachi, the old shopping street of bakeries and boutiques.
1.5 HoursCost: Free 
2Yokohama Chinatown
Cross the road under the painted Chinatown gate into the largest Chinatown in Japan, a grid of several hundred restaurants and shops. Lunch around 11:30 beats the queues: steamed buns from a street window, or a sit-down of Cantonese dim sum or Sichuan dishes. The Kanteibyo temple, with its dragons and incense, is the ornamental centre; the all-you-can-eat places are fine but the specialists are better.
1.5 HoursCost: ¥1,500–3,000- 3
Yamashita Park, Osanbashi Pier and Red Brick Warehouse
Walk five minutes to the waterfront and follow Yamashita Park west past the moored Hikawa Maru liner. Osanbashi, the cruise terminal, has a wooden-decked roof you can walk over for the best view of the whole skyline. Beyond it, the two red-brick customs warehouses from the Meiji port days now hold craft shops and cafés, with markets on the plaza most weekends.
1.5 HoursCost: Free - 4
Cup Noodles Museum
Five minutes further along the harbour is the Cup Noodles Museum, a cheerful place devoted to the invention of instant ramen. The draw is the My Cupnoodles Factory, where you draw on your own cup and pick a broth and four toppings to be sealed in; reserve a time slot on arrival, since it fills up by mid-afternoon. The exhibit of every packet ever sold is oddly absorbing.
1.5 HoursCost: ¥500–1,500 
5Landmark Tower Sky Garden and Minato Mirai at night
Walk ten minutes past the Cosmo Clock Ferris wheel to the Landmark Tower and ride the fast lift to the Sky Garden about 40 minutes before sunset. The view runs from Fuji in the west to the Bay Bridge and Tokyo's towers in the east, and after dark the Ferris wheel below cycles through its colours. Dinner is in the Queen's Square and Landmark Plaza floors, or the retro izakaya lanes of Noge across the tracks from Sakuragicho.
2 HoursCost: ¥1,000–1,500
Day 1 Estimated Cost
- Food¥3,500–7,000
- Transport¥1,000–1,600
- Admissions¥1,500–3,000
Tips
Toyoko Line in to Motomachi-Chukagai, JR back from Sakuragicho: a Minatomirai Line day ticket is pointless, since the whole route is a walk along the water.
The Yamate hill is steep and the harbour walk is 5 km on hard paving; it is windy on Osanbashi even in summer, so bring a jacket.
Eat the big meal in Chinatown at 11:30 and keep the evening light; the Noge alleys near Sakuragicho are where Yokohama locals actually drink.
Osanbashi's roof deck at midday and the Sky Garden at sunset cover the skyline twice; the Chinatown gates are better lit after dark than at noon.