A woman was crossing the street in front of the Yokohama Port Opening Memorial Hall built with red bricks

The streets of Kannai, Yokohama, which was originally a sandbar, were reclaimed and built in a grid pattern, making them easy to follow. Looking at a map, one can see that the grid around Chinatown is slightly tilted, but generally straight streets intersect with straight streets at right angles, making it difficult to lose one's sense of direction even when walking around at random.

Among the many straight streets, the main one is Honcho-dori. According to the website THE YOKOHAMA STANDARD, many different buildings have stood in Kannai over the years, including the Yokohama Town Hall, the Yokohama Post Office, the first Yokohama Raw Silk Inspection Station, the Meidi-ya Main Store, and the Samurai Trading Company. Landmarks have graced this street for centuries.

The current landmark is the Yokohama Port Opening Memorial Hall. The red brick clock tower, which once burned down in the Great Kanto Earthquake, was restored in 1927 and still stands tall on Honcho-dori Avenue, is one of Yokohama's most famous architectural landmarks.

Many buildings built around the same period were built using red bricks. The same is true of the nearby Red Brick Warehouse, the Tokyo Station building, and the Osaka Nakanoshima Public Hall. Strangely enough, even though they are made of the same bricks, one does not feel an exotic atmosphere when looking at Tokyo Station or Nakanoshima Public Hall, but one feels it when looking at the Red Brick Warehouse and the Port Opening Memorial Hall. Perhaps this is the magic of the port city of Yokohama.

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