The Wind of Yokohama

The last stop on my two week long trip to Japan was Yokohama and it is as if I can still feel the famous wind of this city called Hamakaze on my skin. The flags are waving with the wind in Istanbul in the Bosphorous today and I feel like my soul is lingering in both cities.

I loved Yokohama. It was not because I saw the sea in this city that I was visiting for the first time. It was not because I saw the bridges that reminded me of the ones in Istanbul. It was not because I was able to look at Yokohama from those bridges. And it was not because I visited the rose gardens. It was not feeling the cool, gentle yet strong wind that made me happy. In Yokohama I was caught up in the strong stream of love and friendship that warmed up my heart in a way which is hard to describe. I have been experiencing this quite a lot in Japan in this trip, and I had thought I would get used to it.

My visit to the Yokohama Center of Shumei ended in a quite emotional scene at the train station. When the Narita Express Train going to Tokyo Narita Airport left the station, there about nine or ten Japanese teachers and friends who had come to the station at those early morning hours to send me and a Turkish friend of my mine off to our journey back home to Turkey. They waited till the doors were closed. There was so much love and care that I could not hold the tears in my eyes any longer. This was what true friendship was about.

Teto Sensei, who is the head of the Shumei Yokohama Center not only came to the train station that early morning, but even got on the train to check that we were safely seated in our reserved seats. He sent us on our journey like one would his children or siblings. That morning it was hard on my heart to leave these friends who had wrapped us so strongly in love during our stay in Yokohama. And you know what, I feel like they have sent a part of their hearts with us to İstanbul with the intention of protecting us and caring for us.

I started the story with our departure from Yokohama, yet it may be better to go a little back and start with how it all began.

I had met Teto Sensei a couple of months earlier when he was visiting Istanbul. I had thought that he had a calm, tranquil and peaceful energy that makes the people with him feel the same tranquility. To be able to know and appreciate him better, I needed to go to Japan.

When we arrived in Yokohama, Teto Sensei was out of the city due to the opening of the Miho School of Shumei. When we arrived to Yokohama from Tokyo, Sakurai Sensei and two other ladies from the Shumei Yokohoma Center greeted us where we were to exit the station. And they took us to the dinner organized by Mr. and Mrs. Namimoto who would be our hosts in our stay in Yokohama. We found ourselves in a very elegant Italian Restaurant sitting at a long table with lovely new friends from Yokohama. The location was wonderful and a dinner with endless and delicious dishes were being served. We are grateful for this wonderful welcoming. At the end of the dinner I was really touched by the cake that came to the table. It was decorated with the Turkish and the Japanese flags. A group picture was taken with this cake and to our surprise each one of us received a copy of this picture even before we left the restaurant. I think we were about 13 people at that dinner. What a wonderful welcoming. ... I would like to give the Namimoto Family a special and heartfelt thanks for their genuine hospitality. Mr. Keiji and Mrs. Eiko Namimoto with their son who is an architect, welcomed us to Yokohama just like a parent. I wish them the best from my heart.

We were the guests of this sweet couple for three days. They were full of love; they were so gentle. They had a special elegance and grace. In the mornings we would wake up to the day with the wonderful music Mr. Keiji Namimoto would play for us, coming softly up from the living room to our bedrooms upstairs. His wife Mrs. Eiko Namimoto is an excellent cook. The perfect welcoming dinner was a reflection of their fine taste. Mrs. Namimoto woke up at 04:45 one morning to cook us home made bread. She baked three different kinds of bread for us that morning. And they were so delicious. We cannot thank her enough for her kindness and thoughtfulness.

Later on we would learn that Teto Sensei had a big input in the wonderful meals prepared at the Namimoto residence as well. To make sure that we had healthy foods, Teto Sensei had brought all kinds of goods from sugar to salt, from flour to salad materials that were all grown with Shumei Natural Agriculture methods, into the house from all around Japan. Shumei Natural Agriculture is a method of natural farming developed by the founder of Shumei, Mokichi Okada, who is known as Meishusama, Master of Light. This is a method of farming that is respectful to nature and emphasizes sustainability. Last year I started to grow vegetables in our family garden with this method. Also in Turkey in the city of Samsun, rice is grown with Shumei Natural Agriculture methods, and we have the chance and privilege to consume rice that is both very healthy and also delicious.


The day that we went to the Shumei Yokohama Center, we were to see different surprises. The center was decorated with Turkish and Japanese flags. Quite a large group filling the Center welcomed us with a huge banner that was decorated with Turkish and English words of Hello and Welcome. The word for welcome in Turkish is ‘Merhaba’. And not only the banner has this word on it, but also a group of 30-40 people were saying ‘merhaba’, welcome, in Turkish to us as we were entering the center. And in the background I could hear Mozart’s Turkish March playing. And I thought: What a group of sensitive, loving and thoughtful people...

There we had the opportunity to give a short talk to Shumei members. They had prepared a special Taiko drum performance for us as well as a concert where we could listen to different Japanese instruments. We also sang the famous Japanese song 'Sakura' together. During the two days that we visited the Center, we had the chance to eat meals prepared with Shumei Natural Agriculture ingredients. First we thought that the meals were prepared by professional cooks. Later on we discovered that the meals were prepared by volunteers at the Shumei Center. They were prepared by ladies who took the time to prepare special dishes for us. I am glad that I was able to meet these wonderful cooks and thank them in person with my limited Japanese. I want to thank them again with all my heart; I could feel that they put their love in the food that they prepared for us. I like Japanese food a lot, yet the food in Yokohama was very special filled with the loving intentions of our hosts and cooks.

On our three day trip to Yokohama, we were able to spend a day and the morning that we left with Teto Sensei. We learned a lot from Teto Sensei, and the topic that he emphasized the most was the importance of eating foods that were produced naturally. For success, to be able to do good, successful and productive things one had to eat healthy and be healthy. I thought that maybe this was a little more important than I was giving it credit for.

When we were in Yokohama, we had the chance to go up the Landmark Tower Building, which is 296 meters tall and is the second highest structure in Japan after the Tokyo Tower. We went to the observation floor which is on the 69th floor of the building. This building has the fastest elevator in Japan. At times the speed of the elevator goes up to 700+ kilometers per hour. This was also an amazing experience. Yokohama is a beautiful city, with the sea, with its well planned city structure and its sweet wind called Hamakaze that seems to leave a special taste of its own. Who knows, maybe I will get the chance to walk in the Yokohama port and feel that delicious wind in my hair again.

Mata Aimashoo Yokohama… Hope to see you again…