Kan'nai / Yamashita-koen Park関内・山下公園

The first town in Japan to experience Western culture. Yamashita-koen Park is a former 19th-century foreign residential area.

Kan'nai is the area where the Yokohama government offices are located. It is also the birthplace of Yokohama. Japan's isolation from the rest of the world, which lasted for more than 200 years, finally came to an end in the mid-19th century. Yokohama Port was opened for international trading, and foreign residences were created within the Japanese residential areas around the port. The word Kan'nai means "the barrier to the inside" and originates from the fact that a barrier was built in order to separate the foreign residences that were located "inside" the Japanese residential areas. Kan'nai is the first town where Western culture was introduced to the Japanese, and Western influence from those days can still be seen here and there in the streets, such as the Yokohama Kaiko Memorial Museum, which has a clock tower of red bricks.

Yamashita-koen Park is a seaside park about one kilometer long along the seashore, facing Yokohama Port. As it is close to the Chinatown in Yokohama, a number of foreign visitors also love to drop by this park. In the park is the Hikawa-maru, a luxury passenger ferry that was once called "the Pacific Queen." Charlie Chaplin was a passenger on this ship, which still attracts many visitors throughout the year today.

Close to Yamashita-koen Park, there is the O-san-bashi, which is the gateway of Yokohama Port to welcome travelers arriving by large foreign passenger ferries from every corner of the world. From this pier, you can have a beautiful night view of the Minato Mirai District. Cruising on restaurant boats, which are dispatched from O-san-bashi and Yamashita-koen Park, is also popular with travelers.