First
impressions of Tokyo are of a fast-paced thoroughly modern city with wide and
busy streets, traffic, people everywhere and busy, busy, busy. First
impressions of Tokyo are of a fast-paced thoroughly modern city with wide and
busy streets, traffic, people everywhere and busy, busy, busy.
We crash for a few hours, awake as its getting dark, take a shower and decide to walk around the Ginza the shopping area (photo at right). Even at night, it's hectic. Problem is we cannot even begin to read the menus outside the restaurants - there's no English or Roman script anywhere around.
Suddenly, we spot a single word on a sign - "sushi". It's a hole in the wall under a railway line jammed with 32 diners and 9 staff. We walk in and are greeted by a welcoming shout from all the staff - “Irasshai ma se” – "welcome" in English. It's a kuru kuru zushi - literally a “conveyor belt sushi” - restaurant. They place individual pieces of sushi (on color-coded plates signifying different prices) and pass them around on a conveyor belt in front of you as you sit around a bar. You just choose what you want and after you are done, a waiter just tallies up the plates. Talk of efficiency. Waiters pass out beer and sake and we dive right in. What fun. The sushi is delicious and it's a great way to eat fast food, Japanese style. Sake kun da sai! (More sake please!)
Next
morning, we wake up 4:30AM and head for Tsukiji, Tokyo's famous
fish market.
Tsukiji
is a wild scene. It's absolutely huge -
the largest in the world - moving five million pounds of seafood every
day. $28 million passes hands every day here. 400 different
types of seafood are flown in daily from all over the world.
It's very organized notwithstanding the 60,000 people who work there and it's not at all unpleasant with very little of the "fishy" smell one would expect. Fish is being moved in and out at incredible speed and the activity is something to behold.
We head for the tuna auction seen at left. Literally hundreds of tuna,
flash-frozen to 76 degrees below zero are laid
out on slabs and are being auctioned off as fast as they arrive. To this land of
sushi and sashimi eaters, this is the bread basket of
Tokyo and beyond. Hai
We tour many other
sights in Tokyo including the Asakusa Temple below and of course the Imperial
East Garden, part of the imposing Imperial Palace, still occupied by the Royal
Family. After two days in Tokyo, we head for Nikko.
Asakusa Temple Tsukiji Tuna Fish Auction Imperial Garden Imperial Garden Imperial Garden Kuru Kuru Zushi