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It’s already Friday morning here, in the Shibuya ward of Tokyo. We arrived on Wednesday evening, some 12 hours after leaving PDX. The jet lag is still with us and we were wide awake early yesterday morning. Looking at the clock on my iPad, and seeing it was 1:30, I thought it must be 5:30 am here in Tokyo (since my iPad clock has never altered itself before, when changing time zones), and I was stoked to get on the subway and head to the Tsukiji Fish Market. Then I looked at the clock again and realized it had been updated, which meant it was only 1:30 in the morning, Thursday. We went back to bed until five or so, them I got up and checked the hours for Tsukiji. We really wanted to hit the market while we still had jet lag, since the early morning hours, during the fish auctions, are the most fun. What I’d forgotten, however, was that yesterday was a Japanese holiday: it was the solstice! So the market was closed.
Open since the Edo period, the Japanese fish market moved to Tsukiji in 1923 and has been in business ever since. It’s an institution. Whenever I come to Tokyo, I always try and make it to the market my first morning. There’s something fun about having ultra-fresh sushi at 7 am, shoulder to shoulder with a lot of the fish market laborers. On my first visit to Tsukiji, in 1997, there weren’t a lot of tourists there; Google hadn’t been invented yet (had it?). I remember trying to hand money to the sushi chef, after my meal, and how everyone in the tiny restaurant (it could seat 8 people) looked at me as if I’d just sneezed on the fish. The chef kept refusing my money, and waving me away, so I thought he was being polite and buying my meal for me. When I started walking out the front door, a small woman I hadn’t previously seen came running out from behind the counter, yelling at me in Japanese. Then I understood: I was supposed to pay her, since her hands never touched the fish (in the highly misogynistic world of Japan, women were considered unable to ever handle raw fish, as their hands were deemed too warm to keep the fish fresh). That was nearly 20 years ago, which seems impossible. The last time I was at Tsukiji was in 2008, when I took Marla and Jacob to Japan for the first time. Then, the market was full of tourists and all the best hole-in-the-wall sushi joints had lines stretching down the alleys. I’m guessing that will be the case this morning, since the Tsukiji Fish Market is slated to relocate next month, to a remote area of Tokyo called Kotoku, and tourists won’t be as thick, since it won’t be readily accessible by train or bus. Nearly 20% of current fish vendors, and the vast association of other businesses associated with them, are closing their doors for good once the relocation gets underway. So this will be the last time I’ll get to go. Marla and Jacob are up and ready to brave the rain once more. I’m glad the nearest subway station is only a two-minute walk from the Airbnb house I rented here, near Harajuku. Tsukiji is nearly an hour from here, after changing trains twice, but it’s all underground. Then we have a 10-minute walk from Tsukiji Station to the market. More later, and I’ll post some photos from yesterday (all shot with my iPhone, since it was too stormy to carry an umbrella and my camera at the same time).

It’s now just after seven pm and I’m still awake, an hour later than I stayed awake last night. Woohoo! After 11 hours of walking around and riding subways I’m pretty beat but not too tired to go out to a place called Baird’s Taphouse that’s within walking distance. They make their own IPA and I’m curious to see how it tastes. But first, a bit more about our day. We did indeed make it to Tsukiji in time for the fish market and we found a hole-in-the-wall sushi joint that must’ve made it onto the TripAdvisor site.

Tsukiji sushi

There’s nothing like eating sushi in Tsukiji so we got in line and were seated within 30 minutes. Ahead of us in line was a couple from Silicon Valley and they asked if they could buy some yen off me, since they weren’t aware that most businesses in Japan don’t take Visa (and none of the shops in Tsukiji will take it). I made sure to tell them not to try and pay the chef when their meal was over.

The sushi was amazing and it left me wanting more food from the market, like the soup from this stall:

Tsukiji Soup

The woman in this photo seemed pretty upset when she looked up and saw the camera pointed at her so we decided to just scoot on down the road and go to Hama Rikyu Gyoen, one of my favorite meccas in Tokyo. Situated along the Sumida River, Hama Rikyu is the perfect oasis in an otherwise bustling area. Walking towards it, a place I’ve been a dozen times, I didn’t recognize the area at all; everything is being revamped for the upcoming Olympic Games. In fact, that’s the reason the fish market has to relocate: a road is being built in its place, a road for the games. There are a handful of brand new, 30 story buildings that have sprung up around the entrance to Hama Rikyu and it took me awhile to get my bearings. It was still raining, but only just, and the whole park was enshrouded in a low mist, awesome. Here are a few photos from Hama Rikyu:

Hama Rikyu

Hama Rikyu

Hama Rikyu

After Hama Rikyu we walked back to the Hibiya Line and took the subway to Ueno, where I exchanged our JR vouchers for JR Passes; I also booked us on the Shinkansen to Kyoto tomorrow at 1:00. Ueno was fairly close to Asakusa, and to Sensoji Temple, so we walked there. Jacob used his phone to get us there the fastest way and it took us on a route I’d never walked before, through lots of quiet, narrow-laned streets. The sun was about to set so we made our way to the temple before it was dark and it was still crammed with people, mostly couples.

Nakamise Dori, Tokyo

Sensoji fortunes

Sensoji Temple smoke purification

And that pretty much covers our day so far🙂

It’s now Saturday morning and we are lounging around the house. Our body clocks seem to have fully adjusted and we’re getting ready to go to Kyoto in a bit. The Baird Brewery Taphouse, where we went last night, was amazing! It felt like I was back in an Oregon microbrewery. Then I looked at the prices ($10 per pint) and realized I was in Japan, plus the fact that I was able to order grilled saba (mackerel). The best part about the place? It’s smoke free! I cannot tell you how many times I went out with Kaz, or with my classmates at ICU, and came home reeking like an ashtray; it would take a few days for my hair to finally smell normal. Now that I think about it, every place we’ve eaten at so far has been smoke free. What a difference.

I forgot to transfer some of my iPhone photos to my iPad (this is being written on the iPad). These are panoramic shots, which is the reason I bought the iPhone in the first place. I will place a caption under each one.

Meiji Jingu Shrine

Meiji Jingu fortunes

Takeshita Dori

Hama Rikyu garden

Meiji Jingu bridge