Yamate Western Homes; Holiday Decorations Japanese-style

In the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, a group of us decided to take a break from the base and head to Yokohama to see the Yamate homes that were decorated for Christmas. This section of western-style homes sit up on a bluff overlooking Yokohama, where the foreigners were granted permission to build homes and reside shortly after Japan opened up their ports to the west over 150 years ago. Most of the homes that we visited are post-Kanto earthquake era – many of the residences did not survive this massive earthquake in 1923. The homes are now property of the city of Yokohama and during the holiday season they are decorated, with varying degrees of exuberance, by different countries like Norway, Britain and Portugal.

We visited seven former residences of foreign business tycoons or consulates, and if you go to www.yamate-seiyoukan.org you can download a pdf with a map of the area and a suggested walking route. Our group decided to visit the homes reverse-route, starting with no. 7 the Former Uchida House with the ultimate goal of walking down from the bluff to land at the end of Motomachi Street – well-known in the area for great shopping and restaurants (another great link is to an article of the history behind Motomachi from the Japan Times http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090524x4.html). This decision proved to be a good one, no.7 has a small information desk and we were provided with English descriptions of the homes on the tour – that's like hitting pay dirt for us gaijins.

The weather was great, a crystal clear day, Mt. Fuji in view from the Yamate Italian Garden between nos. 6 and 7, and the with Ginkos in their full autumn glory along with some stunning Japanese maples their was beauty to behold both inside the homes and out. I went a bit photo happy with so many great holiday decorations, the slide show is the "best of." Even though this entry is post-holiday, I did it for purely selfish reasons – next year, whether we are stateside or still here in Japan, I wanted to be sure to have these photos very handy ... because the artists who created these decorations left me ... inspired.