Dead Fish and Trendy Kids

On Saturday, we decided to take another trip into the Tokyo area by train and subway. We had planned earlier in the week to visit Tsujiki Fish Market and found that most of the activity starts very early in the morning. Lori and I woke up at 4:00 am so we could be ready to meet Mike at 5 to bike to the train station. I didn't have much of an appetite at this early hour, so I just grabbed a piece of toast. It was probably a good thing I didn't eat much because our meals for the day were a little off schedule.

The Tsujiki Fish Market is one of the biggest in Asia and it provides most of Japan's fish supply and for other countries too. Over Thanksgiving, my sister and Kevin brought over a puzzle with pictures from the "1000 Places to See Before You Die" book and this market was one of them. It wasn't a pretty place by any means, but it definitely was worth seeing. When we got off the subway at the Tsujiki station, Lori and I thought for sure we could faintly smell fish. We didn't have to walk to far to find the market. We first made our way down a very streets, which was a little shopping area with stops selling everything from vegetables and fruits to big knives to pottery. What we really wanted to find was the area with all the fish! The streets around the market were mass chaos; we had to constantly be looking all around because there were trucks, men driving carts full of stuff, people on bicycles, and people walking everywhere! I think we came close to getting run over several times.

Lori, Mike and I finally found the inside of the market where all the fish we being prepared to be sold. It was huge! There was only a little bit of room to walk, and most people inside knew exactly where they wanted to go to buy their fish. I think we were so overwhelmed by the size and the amount of dead fish all around us; I felt a little out of place trying to take pictures and watch the workers chop off fish heads :). We saw all different kinds of things and it would have been cool to buy some fish for dinner, but since we would be walking around all day we thought it would probably go bad if we did.

It was only a little after 9 am when we got outside of the fish area and were making our way back to the outside market. We were a little hungry and thought it would be good to at least try some kind of snack being sold. When we were walking around the outside market, we had seen small restaurants with lots of people already waiting to go inside. We really didn't want to wait too long to go inside, but Lori found one of these restaurants with only a few people inside sat down immediately. The inside was very small and had a bar-like table with stools for us to sit on. There was a small kitchen in the back too. The owner greeted us warmly and offered us two choices of food- sashimi or yakitori. Mike and I ordered sashimi and Lori got chicken yakitori.

There were a few other customers there too, but the waiter paid us a lot of attention. While we waited for our food, he gave us Japanese lessons that were very useful. He wrote down different phrases like, "How do I get to...?" and "I want to order..." and "separate checks, please!" It was very helpful and hopefully we can practice using the phrases. The food was delicious. My sashimi included a serving of raw tuna, raw salmon, shrimp, and a prawn that I had to take out of the shell. My meal also had a bowl of miso soup (soup with tofu and seaweed), a bowl of white rice, and hot tea. Mike had told me earlier that he liked to mix wasabi with soy sauce to dip the raw fish in, so I tried that with mine and it was great.

The waiter, J.J., was very friendly and talked with us the whole time we were there. It was nice to get to know him, but I felt a little bad for the other customers. When we were getting ready to leave, he took our picture to put on his restaurant wall, which was covered with pictures of Americans who had come in. J.J. also asked us to sign a guest book. It was a little funny. I got a picture with him too.

After Tsujiki, we had planned to go to another area for a few hours, but first wanted to stop at the area near Tokyo Tower to visit the coffee shop that had been closed last time we went. We when got there, it was closed again, but a sign said it would open at 11 am, which was in only 30 minutes. We walked around for a little while taking pictures and exploring. We found a staircase that led up to a garden area with a shrine. I tried talking to a woman there who lived right next to the shrine. She spoke a little English and told me it was a Shinto shrine. I could tell she was trying hard to talk to Lori and I. I sometimes feel bad that the people I've met try so hard make me comfortable by speaking English. They never expect me to know Japanese, even though I'm the one visiting their country.

She showed us another staircase that led down to a huge Buddhist temple. After walking up huge flights of stairs, the we looked inside at the sanctuary. It looked more like an auditorium with big statues at the front. There were a few people inside praying and I think there was a tape recording of someone speaking playing. I didn't see anyone talking, so I'm guessing that's what it was.

After looking around a bit, we made our way back over to the coffee shop, which sadly was still closed. There was another one across the street, which didn't look as good as the one we hoped to go to but we tried it anyway. I ordered another delicious hot chocolate while Mike and Lori got their coffees. This shop did have big windows over looking the street, so we could people watch for a little bit. We saw a little boy who kept falling down and then "an intense jogger who kept throwing his head back in exhausting and heaving in huge breaths when he got stopped by traffic" (Lori and I made this description up together just now).

Our next stop was Shibuya, which we had heard was a site of new fashions and trends for younger people. When we left the subway station and got up to the main streets, we found they were packed with people and full of towering buildings with TV screens playing ads. It was, again, overwhelming, as most Tokyo sites have been. I think we were all excited to do a bit of shopping, but we soon realized that the stores and clothes were a bit out of our price range. I didn't think to take pictures inside the stores, I guess I assumed that probably would be frowned upon, but I wish I had. I was hoping to see some kids wearing outrageous outfits like I've seen in this book my friend Kay has when she came to Japan, but I didn't see anything too crazy. Just lots of kids wearing really stylish outfits. Everyone in Japan is really stylish, I've discovered, even the moms at school. One girl fashion trend Lori and I like here that's popular is longer shorts with big pockets with colorful tights underneath. The girls here usually wear winter boots with it too. We are hoping to find an inexpensive version of these shorts and tights to bring back to America! Boo ya in Shibuya!

At about 3 pm, we were hungry again for lunch/dinner, so we found a buffet to eat at. I was really excited because the ad for the restaurant, Los Cabos, had a picture of taco salad (yes I know, not Japanese at all but it is my favorite). However, we became victim to false advertising, as there were not tacos at all! The restaurant did make up for it though by having an extensive dessert table, complete with ice cream sundaes, honey toast (toast stacks with honey on top) and a chocolate fountain and fruit. YUM. I tried to justify eating a lot of dessert with the fact that I our "breakfast snack" of sashimi was probably really healthy.

We came back to school kind of early, since we had started our day at the crack of dawn. It was another good trip. A woman at church was telling us about Yokohama, another city south of Chiba, which sounded like a fun place to visit. When I was in high school, we had an exchange student stay with us for a month who was from Yokohama, so it might be nice to check that out. We also got an invite from Brianna Danese, a girl who went to SAU and now works here in Japan teaching English, to come visit here place near Mt. Fuji (Hi Brianna! She reads this blog) And in a few weeks during "Spring Break" we have a scheduled trip to Kyoto, which is supposed to be beautiful! There is still more of Tokyo to see, but I'm excited to explore other parts of Japan too, so I'm really looking forward to some of these other trips.