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Published: July 14th 2007
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Day 4 - Tsukiji, Finally!
We arrived at Tsukiji market a little after 7:00am (we were able to sleep until 5:00am this morning), and were warned by an American couple to “watch out for the trucks”! As New Yorkers, we sort of laughed the couple off. We knew all about crazy traffic. Right? The market, and all of the surrounding paths are filled with trucks and fork-lift-like carts traveling around 30 mph, and stopping for nobody. We were certainly put in our place, and will no longer doubt fellow-tourist advice. The market was like nothing I have ever seen. Big fish and small fish, blue fish and still moving fish. I think I know where Dr. Seuss got his inspiration. I’ll let Phil describe the market better in his food section, because it went way over my head.
PFS-
“Eye popping”, “jaw dropping” are just a couple ways to explain the massiveness of this place. The Tsukiji Fish Market exceeds all expectations. Picture every sea creature you know or tasted and add 10,000 new ones. Countless rows of sellers and buyers negotiating, yelling, arguing, laughing, moving product in every direction. A controlled chaos which leads to feeding millions
in Japan and around the world. It became apparent, quickly, that big eye tuna is the main game. It seemed like every other stall featured the chubby, oval creatures. We saw specimens ranging from 20 to 300 lbs. Clearly they’re obsessed. It’s hard to believe that the oceans can continue to offer these massive quantities for years to come. Time will tell. After a brief tour we were ready to sample the goods. Our friend, Larry Lee, suggested Daiwa, a tiny two sided sushi bar only which is so cramped the stools touch each other. We were lucky to find only 15 people or so ahead of us. (It was 8:00am) We were tucked in the corner within twenty minutes and greeted by a smiling chef. He suggested we start with the standard sushi assortment which normally I would have balked at but sounded like a good idea considering the language barrier and the mob of hungry co-eaters awaiting.
A complimentary miso soup with tiny (Manila?) clams the size of dimes appeared before us. Excellent. Our first piece was tuna, not white or fatty, just regular tuna which I normally don’t order due to its lack of flavor. It
was easily one of the best pieces of sushi I’ve ever eaten. It had a velvety texture and a flavor associated to no tuna I’ve had previously. The perfect beginning. Every other piece was in a class of its own. From sea urchin, to hamachi, ikura, tile fish, unagi, awaogi (giant clam?) and a couple others, we paused after each piece to savor the best sushi we’ve ever eaten. Tiny Daiwa, we will never forget your mega sized, fresh flavors.
After the market we visited the Hama Rikyu Gardens next door. We would not recommend this place! The water channels, which supposedly run through the gardens, were nothing but very smelly muddy banks.
Shinjuku was the next stop (we were trying to visit all of the recommended sections in the Tokyo piece of the Lonely Planet). We passed through the seedy DVD area to arrive on a busy street where we grabbed a melon-vanilla ice cream float, and people-watched. A few prostitutes, some rockers, and a drunk businessman or two later we moved on to Government Building #2. The observation deck from the building would have proved to be a wondrous site, had it not been for the
heavy rains and ¼ mile visibility.
The rest of the night was uneventful. Phil was crabby because he was hungry, we ate some Ramon, grabbed our free drink from the Smile Café, and went to bed.
Day 5 - Michelle’s Day!
I woke up crying this morning because Phil asks too many questions (and nobody speaks English, so they can’t even answer them), and he spends too much time with the maps. I’m not sure if it was appeasement or a dare, but he put me in charge today! We were up quite early again, and brought our clothes to the neighboring laundry mat. While waiting for the clothes, we found an adorable little local joint for some breakfast. You can’t get more fresh or homemade than this. We had a packet of brown rice with shitake, and an amazing roasted pork roll. We took a chance on this green tea dessert thing. But, it looked like soap and tasted like chalk. The whole meal cost 400 yen (around $3).
Well, I was in charge and my first feat, the subway, proved to be a little more difficult than expected (but totally not my fault). We must
have been on some kind of express line, because they missed our stop. It made me look like an idiot (and I’m sure Phil was reveling). We finally (after four changes) arrived at Yoyogi-koen park. The park wasn’t great, but we were able to see a cool photo-shoot with crazy costumes. We were trying to get to the Meiji-jinju shrine (of course I was leading), and we got a bit lost. This time it was my fault. We found the shrine with the help of some really sweet kids. And guess what! There was a wedding going on at the shrine!! It was beautiful, and we caught it in perfect time!
Shibuya was great! The signs alone could not be beat. The streets are filled with trendy clothing shops with the craziest American names: Bestlip, Rosebullet, Aqua girl on the street… We enjoyed looking at the cool buildings and shops, but we were on a mission- Katsu (fried pork). Raji (our Japanese resource) recommended a Katsu place, Maisen, above the Shibuya station. Once again, I will let Phil do the food description, because there is no way I could do justice to the awesomeness that we had experienced.
PFS
When you think of deep fried food “delicacy” doesn’t usually come to mind. Maisen’s pork katsu dispels that thought process. The batter ingredients, length of deep frying, tenderness and quality of pork make theirs excellent. We shared an egg bowl topped with the pork over rice and a sampler with shrimp and shrimp croquette accompanied by shredded cabbage, rice and pickles. So good. We got up to pay and exit and were ushered back to our table to enjoy complimentary grapefruit sorbet-gelato. Also above par.
We walked through this crazy intersection (hundreds of people crossing four different ways at the same time) on the way to Doegenzaga. At the very top of the hill was the one tourist site I have been dying to see- Love Hill Hotels. They have tons of themed “love hotels”, which include Medieval, French, Mediterranean, Chicago (as in the musical), and Oceanic. I wish I could have seen more than just the outside of the hotels, but alas I was able to check it off the list. A quick (hour long) visit to quaint bar on the way to the station, and we were back at the hostel. Another treacherous nap had us both up at 3:00 in the morning listening to a crazy kiwi (New Zealander) describe his six months through S.E. Asia. I’m not sure if it was the Thai “girlie-boy” story, or the Vietnamese parasitic worm in the foot story, but we needed to sleep. It would be an early morning on the bullet train, and then on to Osaka!!
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Daniel
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Hey Now
What a wonderful trip. I wish I got to say good bye.. What an amazing adventure.. Keep us posted guys.\ DAniel