After the fish

After some last minute plans yesterday, we started today with our third local guide, Mrs Mitsui, who was kind enough to meet us at the (not*)train station outside our hotel and take us over for a guided tour of Tsukiji Market, the largest fish market in the world.

And she knew a thing or two about it, having previously worked at a company who dealt in fish and taken clients to the market for a look around and to sample the freshest sushi you'll find. We didn't start early doors** rather heading over after breakfast when the wholesale section is open to the public. As we reached the tube stop and disembarked the train, the smell was already evident on the platform (3 long escalators down). I can't imagine what it is like earlier, or even later when all the workers are headed home. There's a business opportunity in nose clips there I reckon.

It is vast. And I didn't even notice the multiple levels of it until I spotted the ladders in my photos. It's also quite a busy place, carts/vans/people/barrows all moving round at a rate of knots. You have to watch out otherwise you'll be just another streak mark or dink in the weird barrel carts that whizz around.

After a wander about the market floor and surrounding stands/shops (knives, cookware, toothpicks in huge quantities and other assorted stuff), Mrs M took us to one of the many sushi restaurants dotted around the site. She pointed out the two that are particularly famous (one with friendly staff, the other not), then whisked us off to her recommendation, the one she has taken clients to before. Wow. I have not had fresher fish than that. We sat at the bar and had the chef preparing it all right there in front of us (just like in Jiro, for those that have seen it). Wow. Highlight for me was the medium fatty tuna, it just melts in your mouth.

Sadly we bid farewell to our host for the morning, she has a lot of planning to do trying to arrange a wedding in Tokyo from ~6000 mile away, so has a lot to do while she is here. So we wandered over to Hamarikyuteien for a walk around this garden in amongst the skyscrapers of downtown Tokyo. Lovely place, and we got to see some wisteria blossom too, looks like that has come out early this year just like the cherry blossoms. From there we caught the river bus up to Asakusa. The idea was to gets seat on the boat and have a bit of a rest, but that wasn't to be as the sun as it and the views going up the river were too good not to stand up on the roof.

Still, when we got to Asakusa we stopped off at an ice cream parlour, got a couple of cones, had a chat with the proprietor (he was a fan of whisky, but I think our conversation would have gone further had we understood more Japanese) and took the weight off in the shadow of Senso-ji.

Off down to Electric Town, Akihabara after that to visit the largest camera and electronics store in the world (I won't say if I bought anything, I'll leave that up to you to postulate on). Perusal of some arcade, manga and anime stores later, we ended up at a yakiniku (cook it yourself bbq at your table affair) restaurant for dinner (despite the best attempts of the maids trying to persuade us into one of the Maid Cafes). Electric Town does exactly what it says on the tin.





* see yesterday
** they let a small number of people in at 5.30 to watch the tuna auction, but neither I nor Lin are likely to be caught queuing for anything at 4.30 in the morning