Tokyo - Tsukji Fish market, sushi for a newbie and Akihabara District

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We left the hotel and walked to the metro station to go to the fish market, on the way past, we walked by a little vending machine that sold hats for cats, they were hilarious. Bear ears, bunny ears and a hat that looked like a boiled sweet, obviously, I had to get one! Molly the cat is going to be SO impressed when I get home!!

When we arrived in the area where the fish market is, we walked into a tiny walkway lined with market stalls with household goods, veggies, fish and meat. The market was very busy despite the later time, Michie took us to a stall to try a local cake, round and heavy with a choice of filling with chocolate, custard, soya beans, black sesame and many more, because I’ve been missing it for some bizarre reason, I chose custard. It was AMAZING!! After I’d eaten it, I was told it contained a full bowl of rice - no wonder I was so full!

Next we headed for the indoor market, with the ground floor filled with fish stalls - there was so much choice, there were urchins, muscles, snapper, oysters and then there was the most enormous tuna I’ve ever seen, I knew they were big, but, they were massive! Each morning, there is a tuna auction at the fish market where only 120 visitors are allowed in to witness the owners of the fish stalls bidding on the fish. To go there and successfully get in you need to arrive by around 3am - I didn’t go to the auction, but, I believe it’s interesting to watch. For anyone thinking of going, it’s worth bearing in mind that the market will be moving soon, at the time of writing there was no confirmed date for this to happen.

After we walked around the indoor market, it was time to visit the warehouse area, this is were all the fish is cleaned, filleted and sorted before heading to the market. Even though we were a little later, it was still really active, the workers were zipping around on little trucks and they take no prisoners, you need to make sure you don’t get in their way. They don’t appreciate photos in here as they are just going about their daily work and tourists just get in the way. I did sneak a couple though.

After seeing how it all works, we went to a sushi restaurant a few minutes away for early lunch. I’ve only ever eaten vegetarian sushi and I was keen to try real sushi, but a little apprehensive! I ordered salmon and avocado sushi, picked up my chopsticks, which by the way I’ve got really good at using! And tucked in. I have to say, it was amazing, I could tell everything was so fresh and tasted great.

After lunch, we set off on the metro to the Akihabara district of the city. This area has gained recognition as the center of Japan's otaku culture. Many shops and establishments devoted to anime and manga are now dispersed among the electronic stores in the district. This to me is what I imagined Tokyo would look like, huge screens on the side of buildings, adverts for Sega and Nintendo and rows of stores with clay models of so many anime characters I didn’t know where to start! Before we started to look round the stores, we went inside for a cold drink under an arch way across the road to cool down, it was 41 degrees and we were all feeling it. After a cool down we set off for the stores so I could go and find some Nendroids for my sister as she collects them - after around an hour walking round the 5 floors of the store we chose, I found a couple of the ones I thought she’d like and then we went to the post office to send them home. Michie helped me in the post office finding a box, and choosing the type of postage I wanted, they even gave me some paper for packing the box with and they have different reading glasses in the counter in case people need them - most helpful post office ever.

Boxes successfully posted and en route to the UK we set off back to the hotel on the metro. After walking around 9 miles in the neat, I was exhausted when I got back so I chose to get a bite to eat from the convenience store and get an early night ready for an early start and journey of a couple of hours on the train to Nikko for the next few days.

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Photos

Akihabara District
This is what I imagined Tokyo to look like!