Yokohama Navy Exchange was where?

COWBELL YOKOHAMA STATION 1969 - 1970? PLACE WAS HUGE. BIG AS A GYM, I WAS A FRIEND OF A BAND: MONTY [GUITAR], MONTY'S BROTHER [GUITAR?], DAVID [DRUMMER], ANOTHER BAND MEMBER. THERE WERE SO MANY J-GIRLS. HAD A GREAT TIME. MARK underscore HENNE at Y who. I REMEMBER SO MUCH FROM THOSE YEARS [FIRST KISS WAS WITH STEFFANY FREDDY AT DAVE'S HOUSE] WISH TO TRADE MEMORIES.

MOTOMACHI
GAIJIN BOCHI YOKOHAMA
AVE D.
YOHI
SUNKEN GARDENS
450 HONDAs
YAMASHITA PARK
HORSE RACING [NOW A PARK] USED TO RUN AROUND PERIMETER ROAD, BARE FOOT,
YAMATE STATION, YAKI TORI SHOP
YCAC
ST MARY'S

Hello Mark,

You have good memories in Yokohama. The restaurant Cowbell was not at JR Yokohama station. It was in building called Golden Center near by JR Sakuragi - Chou station. I and my wife often dated there. Unfortunately Cowbell was closed. I could not find that pictures or video.

Welcome Mark. My memory is fading, but I remember the Cowbell to be on the top floor of a building across the street from the main entrance to Isesaki-Cho, and not far from the Peanut Club. The waiters and waitresses wore uniforms reminiscent of the Oktoberfest in Germany. The food was good, the beer was good, and the bands were good! What more could you want -- you went to the Peanut Club to pick up women, and you took a date to the Cowbell. I was in the Army in Yokohama, 1967-1968, and I think the Cowbell was a new club, opened in late 1967. Funny -- my first kiss was with Steffany Freddy too!

Wally

Mark et al
That huge bar/dance hall accross from Yokohama Station was called ..ZEN
Went there a couple of times. They had old cars on the flood for people to hang out in and dance around..yes the place was huge..too big and imperonal.
How did I remember that place name.?.I cant remember what I had for breakfast.
Steffi..there is a psy name for that...senior savantis?

Hello All,

Today's Yokohama is pretty cool with the approach of a typhoon. A strong typhoon will hit the metropolitan area on Wednesday and it will be northward. I closed all the shutters my home. Strong wind and rain leaves Yokohama on Thursday morning.

Yes, Cowbell was on the top floor of the building. Wally san's memory is correct. I and my wife ate, drank, danced at there. Yakitori of Cowbell was delicious. There were many US soldiers and foreign seafarers.

And I think about Cliffside in Motomachi. That is an old dance hall built after the war. I saw Cliff side webpage, but it seems that Japanese and American military affairs went at that time.
Now everyone can go there. Did anyone go to Cliffside?

There are web sites of Yokohama Cliffside, but Japanese.

https://cliffsideyokohama.wordpress.com/
http://magazine.atloco.jp/201608/cliffside.html

Hello Mark:
You must've come to Yokohama about ten years after we left.
My dad was a civilian US Army staffer at Camp Zama and then the Army's Japan Procurement Agency. My time in country was 1951-1961 with a couple of breaks in between.
I attended Yo-Hi elementary (then named Nasugbu Beach,) then Yokohama International School (on the Bluff) then back to Yo-Hi.
My mom and I sailed back to the US in '58 to look after my grand father. We returned to find the Army gone and the Navy in charge. Yo-Hi became Nile C. Kinnick High School and all the Army names had been replaced with Navy names. No more Saturday matinees at Bill Chickering.
In all, I made six crossings on MSTS in the ten years of being an "Army Brat."
Eric

Peter......it sounds to me like your memory, along with everyone else's on this thread, is remarkably intact, and that you have nothing to be worried about. You certainly have great recollection regarding the important stuff, like where the best clubs, food, drink, etc were during those years......As for remembering your breakfast.....In Japan, I believe, at least in bygone days, breakfast as a separate kind of meal where only certain foods were mostly eaten, didn't exist. It consisted of basic rice, with various toppings, just like lunch......or dinner.

Weather is about to become extreme again here in the east.....another deluge of rain, maybe 6 or so more inches forecast for the weekend. This summer, almost every day has had some rain, like the tropics.

There were major disasters in various parts of Japan. We are making efforts to reconstruct them quickly. The number of overseas travelers who visited Japan has already exceeded about 19 million now. The Japanese government expects 40 million travelers to come by the 2020 Olympic Games.

We are very attentive so that military personnel and families belonged to the US military bases in Japan once, and people who have plans for coming to first Japan can safely tourist. Please come, here is clean and beautiful country.

Merry Christmas everyone! Also, Happy New Year! I'm planning on having a New Year's Eve party again this year. I'll never forget the party we had New Year's Eve 1967. A bunch of us rented rooms in the Silk Hotel, Yokohama, and at midnight all the ships in the Harbor blew their horns. I guess Kaoru-san will be the only one of us to hear the horns this New Year's. My party last year couldn't compare. We are a bunch of old people, and after the ball dropped in New York City, most went home. They didn't stick around for midnight to occur here in the Midwest, and I think I had to wake the one's remaining. Anyway, I hope everyone has a great 2019!

Wally

I also would like to wish everyone a merry christmas ! It would be great to see how many of us are still following the thread. So check in !
Christmas and New Years was magical in Yokohama. especially with the especially with the ships horns at midnight. From our apartment it was like the beginning of a new world. There must have been hundreds of them ! Well..it sounded like it anyway.

I remember the US Army radio, Far East Network (810 kHz) did coverage of Santa's anticipated arrival to Japan. Santa had been somewhere north of us, delivering toys to all the good little boys and girls.

About an hour into the program, Santa somehow got sidetracked over Hokkaido and his arrival in Yokohama would be delayed.

It happened every year...

Well, Omedeto, and a Happy New Year to one and all. When New Year's Eve comes along, my memories hark back to our house on Honmoku Beach. There, we heard all the ships blast their fog horns to welcome the new year, while the temple bells were ringing in with 101 gongs. I also remember the distinctive melody of the ramen man pushing his cart as he tooted his horn. Cha-la-la-lala, chalala-lalala-lalala. It is customary to eat noodles on the eve to wish for longevity.
My grandpa visited us from Tokyo to go swimming on New Years Day. Cold but very refreshing, he would say. The fishermen gave us treats of tangerines and candy. Women and girls would come out in their kimonos, heading to the temples to pray for a fortuitous year.
The entire shoreline of Honmoku has been transformed to accommodate container ships and loading docks and refineries, leaving no clue that there once was a tidal flat and a lovely beach.
This year, the emperor retires, marking the end of Heisei. The new name is yet to be announced but it will probably connote peace and harmony. I wish you all health and happiness as well.
Honmokujin

Correction: The New Year's Eve temple bells are rung 108 times. Why? Buddhists believe that on the eve, we should purge all 108 earthly desires and begin anew.
Never investigated what those 108 earthly desires might be.
Honmokujin

Honmokujin san
And all of whats left ..
Happy New Year.
What wonderful memories you have of the early times in Yokohama.
As for the 108 ...this I believe represents the 108 worldy sins. I found a set of juzu beads
[like rosary beads] once and being unable to return them, I think I learned what they ment.
I still have them in my keepsake box.
I didnt know there were so many sins ! I am truly remiss. Too late now.

Happy New Year, Honnmokujin and Everyone.

You have many memories of New Year 's Eve in Japan. It's a wonderful.

Yokohama's New Year's morning was around 50 F. I drove Enoshima, Hayama and Yokosuka by car this morning. Route 134 on the coast is empty and the sea is beautiful.

Well, Bells of New Year's Eve temple are ringed 108 times by priests.
It adds three eras of Past life, This life, Afterlife 36 of the earthly desires. This is a bit complicated in Buddhist teachings.

I often exchange e-mail with Eric-san, Peter-san, Wally-san, they are okay.
And I hope to health of all the members who lived in Yokohama once.

My dad's Masonic Lodge somehow found out about a unique orphanage in the countryside near Yokohama. It was built by the Japanese government to house aging war survivors who had lost their homes and families from the war.
I remember seeing men and women in near-identical kimonos seated around a series of low tables with a charcoal hibachi for warmth and not much else.
The Lodge brothers brought food and warm clothes from the PX/commissary as Christmas gifts for the old timers. One heavy set lodge brother named "Tiny" Alford appeared in a Santa suit and handed out "presentos" while singing "China Night," in Japanese. The residents weren't sure who Santa was but they were glad to get warm socks and other clothes.

A Happy New Year to everyone. Good to see this thread still live....I had not heard back the last few times and assumed you all were gone for good, which was sad......but you all sound good.

Ramen noodles....funny, but I don't remember eating those. Perhaps they came in later on, after I left. I hear that is now a Japanese staple item. But Japanese food is now still a major part of our weekly diet...though restaurants here are mostly no longer owned by Japanese. My husband favors the giant steaming udon soups, with everything in them....I like the teriyaki items, and sushi.

My first experience of Christmas, or of western culture in general, was with the American Red Cross ladies, celebrating at Berrick Hall, on the Bluff, in Yokohama, where my Mom worked. I also was in the St Joseph's school chorus, singing lovely carols at the PX. Though not Catholic, I went to Mass each day with my best friend Minette, who was French through her mother, Japanese via her Dad, but an American citizen as she was born in Hawaii. The PX gave us chocolate......hard, delicious dark chocolate bars, My first. Amazing! It was a bright and magical experience, as Christmas still is.....I have been in touch with several former classmates....I regret not having returned to Japan since then, but life has been so busy and moved on quickly.

Let's hope for a peaceful, healthy, and joyous New Year..for each other, our country, and the world.

Happy New Year to you.

I attended the Yokohama International School for a couple years, just down the street from St. Joseph's on the Bluff. We had an annual soccer game with the St. Joseph boys; they liked to kick us in the shins to get control of the ball.
Our coach was Mr. Yajima, a German national who had married a Japanese woman while assuming her family name. Yajima had been in the German army on the Russian Front and had been shot by a Russian solder and survived. He liked to tell stories that began, "When vee were in da German army..."
I heard he taught for a time at St. Joseph's.

I, too, have wanted to return to Japan but it's been 68 years. All that I remember is likely gone, including the street cars, the tidal flats below San Kaien Gardens where I liked to go fishing, etc. Even the MSTS ships that sailed us back and forth to Japan are extinct.

Things change...

Eric.....
You have such an incredible memory, and have a really interesting story to tell about your unusual experiences in Japan, and as a military kid, perhaps elsewhere as well. I hope you have written down all these stories, or recorded them, for the benefit of children, grandchildren, or even other younger relatives.

After my Mom died very suddenly in 1993, I realized how much I didn't know, how many questions I had.......and that there was no one left to ask......even for a simple thing like identifying everyone in old pictures. Now, I am starting to write things down, while my memory is still sharp, as I have a son, and several younger cousins.......who are really curious, especially as they themselves get older......

Steffi

My mom was born in 1920 when Mystic, Iowa was still a thriving coal mining community. She had dozens of great stories, some funny yarns.

She told the story of a local pinch-penny guy who always bought his overalls five or six inches too long. He would then roll them up and pin the pants to fit his leg length.

Asked why he did this, he responded that he just wanted to get his money's worth. "The department stores just want to cheat ya."