Sushi for Breakfast

October 15 2011 So on our first full day in Tokyo we went to the Tsukiji fish market. We had a good time trying to find it, and it was pouring, but we asked directions and we made it.



It was actually closed to the public for a few months due to people poking the fish (which is super expensive and amazing quality) and getting in the way of the workers (there are a lot of motorized vehicles to watch out for, and people hustling and bustling doing business).





 Lucky for us they reopened to the public in the summer. It was really cool to see them descaling the fishes, as well as using huge swords (actually Japanese knives that Lockey was very excited about) to cut their wares.



 Tuna is a huge deal there, and we saw very large hunks of meat.



 We saw all sorts of fish like squid (sitting in styrofoam in a black liquid..."Ohhhh I inked"... name that movie!) and sea snakes, and big sacs of fish roe, a box of hearts, a fish that looked like it had a beak...

Oh and just so you know I was quite happy to have a Japanese gentleman say "Ciao Bella" to me on our way out of the fish market. I turned to Lockey and said "See? I don't look Irish!" (And if you don't get that joke don't worry about it, it's from a previous post). It made my day. So of course we had to have sushi for breakfast.





 The freshest sushi you've ever tasted, melt in your mouth. The shrimp was actually gooey, slipped right out of its tail. Lockey liked the shrimp, which usually it's not his fave, but I wasn't a big fan of the sticky mucusy strings on my lips... But the rest was fab, we tried Abalone, which is very expensive in HK, and they have it dried out everywhere, and it was delish, the Miso soup even had 3 open clam shells in it. And the Japanese omelette was a nice sweet ending. (Although I'm still not really sure where egg fits in with the raw fish...)

 Afterwards we found a little market area that was busy as it had stopped raining and it was a Saturday morning, we wandered w/ the locals, and guess what we mostly saw? you got it. Sushi. And Omelette on a stick. And Japanese knives (Lockey looked at every store... but I reminded him it may be complicated to get a knife through security on his carryon...)

 After the market we found Hama-rikyu Gardens, thanks to Lockey and his handy dandy Lonely Planet guide.



 It was very quiet, and there were a couple of ponds one with 3 islands and another for duck hunting.





 There were a few tea houses (only one that was in use as the others were just historical buildings)

A shrine area where they would pray for their crops



A flower garden, a big clearing, and a few "mountains"... which were glorified mole hills that they had actually built themselves. We had the audio guide so we learned about the duck hunting method from the Edo period.

View from the duck blind

Lockey using the hammer in the duck blind (it is to call the domestic ducks that are used as decoys to the wild ducks that they actually hunt... sneaky ducks!)

 As well as something about Japan opening to the west after the 18th US president visited there in 1853. (Name that president!) And how one of the shoguns liked to sit at the one teahouse by the bay and look at the mountains across the bay area.... you cannot see mountains today as there are really tall buildings and bridges in the way. 

Look at me! I'm a teahouse looking out at the sea!

We saw lots of wedding photo shoots and they all seemed very professional!

Hugest grasshopper you've ever seen, and it was very stubborn, it didn't want to get off of Lockey's leg!

  I'm impressed I learned that much, as Lockey and I are more "experience" travelers... We aren't super interested in a lot of the history, we would rather experience the culture and the people and the food, climate, nature and surroundings as they are today. Don't get me wrong, we do enjoy the odd tidbit here and there, but we don't particularly study it all out before going on an adventure somewhere! So saying that, we did enjoy the serenity of the park, it was beautiful. And we even sat and rested our feet and played a couple of games of Boggle. 

 Then we decided it was time to get up and walk on our tired feet some more and explore Ginza. We wandered through a few streets in Ginza until we smelled a familiar smell.... Abercrombie. It was an 11 floor store. There was a topless fellow in the lobby as well as a few other Abercrombie types to take you up in the elevator and explain the store layout to you. It was pretty intense. Each floor was tiny, and you basically had to walk down every floor, which I was a little annoyed at, (The elevator only stopped at 7 and 11, and obviously 1, but who knew which floor I was on? I didn't!)

Looking down the stairwell in Abercrombie

 Lockey loved the mural on the wall, it was pretty cool, and 11 stories tall with crazy jacked guys doing headstand sequences and pushups and such. Unfortunately he didn't take a picture of it, BUT he did get a sweet picture w/ the topless guy in the Lobby.



 Lockey saw him taking pictures w/ all the girls, and so he went right up to get his picture taken too... And the guy got all awkward he went to put his arm around Lockey, but then thought better of it, and I cracked up, and then he realized it was a joke...

Ginza was nuts, Christian Louboutin, Harrods, Barney's NY, Dior, Chanel, Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany's, Dunhill, you get the drift, but it was street upon street of this. It was fun to be in the area, but then we got hungry... And you know there's no "budget" restaurants in an area like Ginza! So we walked some streets, and found some side streets that looked a little more reasonable, and Lockey started to get irritable. So finally we found something that was acceptable to him, it wasn't expensive, and it wasn't Subway, but it wasn't "Japanese" food either.... but it WAS a Japanese bakery, which we'd never had before, so it was new and exciting. It was Heart Bread Antique. Holy Hannah I am in love.



 I had a pumpkin curry tarffin..... (I can't decide if it's a muffin or a tart... Muffart maybe...?), w/ a gooey middle and squash, eggplant and broccoli on top. Then the piece de resistance... the Choco Ring, which is their signature.... A huge ring (the size of an angel food cake almost) of croissant w/ tons of chocolate chips that have gooified (totally a word) and some walnuts.... I must find this again! Oh, and yes we did eat the whole thing in one sitting.



 Then we were off to the Mac store on Lockey's request... until we saw a huge line up to get in....



 So off to the Sony store which is also in Lonely planet's things to do list. It was actually pretty cool, we saw some 3D TVs, and there was even a 3D video camera w/ 3D glasses and you could watch yourself on TV in 3D, I tried to touch Lockey's hand as it came at me, but I just couldn't.... it was trippy. And there was a camera that was set up and you could stand in front of it and it would focus on you, and you could do poses and such, but only when you smiled would it automatically take your picture. So Lockey and I played in front of that for a while too. Pose and pose and Smile! Pose pose... Growl! (As long as your teeth showed it took the picture!) I'm sure in 15 years when our kids read this this they will roll their eyes and think we are from the dinosaur age!

 Then we were off to find a Kabuki theater, which I thought would be a cool cultural experience, and I had heard that Kabuki is 4 or 5 hours long, and so if you went for the last act you could get discounted tickets. So we went for the last act, and the tickets were not discounted, and they were $200 CAD each.... so skipped that!

 And instead we went to Times square Tokyo, which is nothing like Times Square NYC. It's basically a big mall called times square, and there is a big building next to it w/ a huge clock on it.



 But there was lots of hustle and bustle so we followed the masses and wandered around some streets w/ lots of lights and again somehow we found the inappropriate part of town. I decided that "gated" communities in Tokyo are not the same as those in North America, and we shouldn't go through gates anymore.



 Lockey and I laughed and decided that we are like Moths to lights, or Horses to shiny things, or Fat kids to smarties, or Cami to a bakery... We see lights and people, and we go down the street....

We also made a quick stop to play an arcade game, which Lockey and I basically "rocked" at... seriously though.



 By this time I am hungry again. carbs don't hold you over for too long, so eat more carbs! Just kidding, have a burger, much better in nutritional values, and we got the one w/ lettuce and a tomato on it, so it was basically good for us.  The nice thing is the burgers here are tiny! Kind of like this one place we went to in NY that had these teeny delicious burgers. Anyways, we shared a teeny delicious burger and a few onion rings at a place recommended to us by the girl at the hotel we stayed at, "Mos" burgers, Japanese gourmet burgers, it was kinda like a big mac, but better...

And then we went home and to bed! I'm beat.... It's Sunday now, and we are on a train to Kyoto. And the majority of travelers are very vital senior citizens. When we were on the train yesterday the was an older woman standing in front of us, but it's hard to tell how old asians are, and they are all in pretty good shape, so you don't want to insult someone by offering them your seat, but it's also considered polite to do so for an elderly person, so Lockey and I decided that the rule of thumb should be "If they perm their hair, they can have my seat"! And now off for some more adventures!