Susan's Shanghai Blog - Tokyo Part 1

Day 1

This is our first "international" trip since we moved to Shanghai and only our 2nd short vacation. We left in the morning and landed in Tokyo early afternoon. It was easy to follow the signs to the Narita Express and purchase the tickets. It is a rather long distance from the airport to the center of the city, but we finally arrived at the Shibuya Station. Our hotel was pretty easy to find, only a couple blocks south of the station. We checked in and headed to the room. The hotel has an interesting color scheme, with a lot of black, lime green, and shocking orange. But the room was really nice, and quite big for Tokyo standards.

To one side of the door is the double-bed along with a small sofa and desk with the TV on it.

Then to the other side is the bathroom with a nice sink area and one of the best showers that we've had in ANY hotel we've stayed at worldwide, and that is saying something. It has a clear shower door doing into a room with a bathtub on one side and the shower takes up the entire rest of the room. It is the length of the bathtub and about twice as wide. It had both the normal showerhead and the showerhead in the ceiling. Quite nice! And also the best water pressure we've had in a hotel I think .. amazing!

Once we got settled in, we headed out to look around. We started walking North towards Harajuku and the Meiji shrine and along the way, we came across another temple or shrine (not sure which) and we really don't know what it is, because there were no signs.

A bit further up, we got to the Meiji Shrine, about an hour before they closed. Here is me in front of the main entrance

It is a really nice and secluded area .. another "oasis in the middle of the city". As you walk in, you go through these overhanging trees and you get to this one area with barrels on each side. The barrels on one side are all wine barrels and the plaque mentioned about being from the various wine producers in France. On the other side, they were all nicely decorated with Japanese motifs, and we can only assume they were Sake barrels.

Then we got to yet another gateway before the "washing station". In front of every Shinto Shrine, there is a station to wash yourself before entering the shrine, and so Tom took the opportunity to follow the washing tradition.

Then into the complex. There are various buildings within the Shrine

Back to the hotel for a quick change and then off we went to dinner. We had picked out restaurants ahead of time and had the hotel call for reservations, although after arriving, it didn't seem like they were necessary in most places. We also figured out that 7:30 seemed just a little early for dinner, since we were getting done when the different restaurants were starting to get busy. The first night was a tempura restaurant called Aoi-Mauruchin, and was up in the Asakusa area. We followed the map that we had and we got to what we thought was the restaurant, but the name was all in Japanese. we're looking around, then ask the gentleman standing out front if this was the right place, showing him the name in the Fodor's book in Japanese ... he says "yes, Mister Hanson?" ... nice! they knew we were coming! It was a nice little place inside, although we didn't see any tatami mat tables like the book said, but maybe they were upstairs. Along the back wall was a nice wood carving of a dragon or serpent.

Now the food .. we ordered a couple different tempura sets, and it was quite a little spread. Different tempura'd things (shrimp, fish, veggies) along with a side tempura "lump" that had shrimp in it as well. There was also soup and a few side dishes that we didn't really recognize, but were quite tasty. And of course, the bottle of sake to go along with our first meal together in Japan (Tom's first meal .. I've been to Japan before).

One thing that we found very interesting is that almost all restaurants will have a display with what food you can get along with the prices in many cases. Reading through the book, there is an actual story about how this came to be fashionable, with one restaurateur starting it, and now, it is very common and there is a section of Tokyo that specializes in plastic food of all kinds, shapes, and varieties.

On the way back to the metro station, we saw this cute thing, so we had to get a picture ... a dog on top of a cow, and then Susan in the middle for good measure.

So that ends our first day (half day really) in Tokyo.

Day2

Day 2 started very early! We got up and left the hotel at about 4:30 in the morning to catch a taxi over to the Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market, or just the Tsukiji fish market. This is the largest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world. There are 2 sections: the inner market where the auctions and seafood processing take place, and the outer market which is a combination of both wholesale and retail shops, including sushi restaurants (yea, and you can imagine that the fish there is VERY fresh!). We got to the "Fish Information Office" about 5 in the morning, hoping to get into the 1st shift of visitors allowed into the Tuna auction. However, we just missed the first shift and were the first in line for the 2nd shift. As we stood outside, we watch lots of trucks come in and out of the market.

Then we finally get our turn and got to wear these great little green bibs.

We walked through the fish market area and into the Tuna auction. The market opens at 3:00 a.m. with the arrival of the products by ship, truck and plane from all over the world. Particularly impressive is the unloading of tons of frozen tuna. The auction houses then estimate the value and prepare the incoming products for the auctions. The buyers then inspect the fish to estimate which fish they would like to bid for and at which price. You can see pictures where the buyer is bent over, looking at a flap that has been cut on the side of the tuna. We assumed he was inspecting the meat, maybe the fat content?

Then the auction starts. The auctioneer (here the one standing on a wooden box in the middle of the photo) gets up on the box and then starts ringing a bell. There seems to be a very specific way the bell is rung and then at the end he puts it on the box and the auction is off!

You can see the bidders who are registering their bids with a set of finger gestures (you can see the 2 guys on the left with their fingers out). The auctioneer has a clipboard and makes notes as the auction progresses. It's interesting to watch, he does a little dance-move on the box as the auction moves forward, and it all takes only a couple minutes per tuna section.

Then the frozen fish are tagged again, we're assuming with some indication of which bidder bought the tuna, and then they get carted off. Some of them get "flung" (literally) onto these little carts and hauled to other parts of the market for processing. The "flinging" happens with the help of their little claw-things

As we were leaving, we happened to go by a place where they were doing the cutting and preparation. Frozen tuna and swordfish are often cut with large band saws, which we happened to see. It looks like they cut them in quarters and then we saw them going to even other places in the market, we assumed for even more preparation.

Then we headed to the outer market area and walked through looking at the various stores. A lot of them sold kitchen items, some food and veggies, some with pot, pans, and even kitchen knives. There were plenty of little (and I do mean LITTLE) sushi places with just a single little bar. We went in one to get our Sushi Breakfast! We each ordered a Fuji plate, which included a nice set of sushi, including a scallop (which we had never had before with sushi).

We THINK that this is actually a chicken processing place, since when we looked closer it looked more like chicken than fish, even though it was at the fish market.

Next stop was the area of Tokyo called Ginza, which is named after the silver-coin mint established there in 1612 during the Edo period. Ginza is known as an upscale area of Tokyo with several big department stores, boutiques, restaurants and coffeehouses and is recognized as one of the most luxurious shopping districts in the world. And they have some really cool buildings. This is the GAP store:

And the Sony building. We went through the entire Sony Showcase, which goes through 7 floors of the building and shows all kinds of different Sony products. On the top floor was a showcase that included the Chinese pianist, Lang Lang.

This is the famous Wako building with the Hattori Clock Tower. The building and clock tower were originally built by Kintaro Hattori, the founder of Seiko.

The Cartier building is, as expected, gold!

There were a couple other interesting things walking from the main street in Ginza up to Mitsukoshi Department Store, including a giaraffe with a crown, and a really cool red brick building.

When we got the the Mitsukoshi Department Store, it was quite interesting. They weren't quite open yet, so we took the opportunity to grab a picture with Tom and one of the lions that front the main entrance of the building.

Then they got ready to open, and this lady comes out and stands in front of the doors, pressed suit, white gloves. Then she says something in Japanese, and then in English as well. Thank you for coming, blah blah blah. Next was the interesting part. She goes back inside and they close and lock the doors and 4 of them just stand there, behind the glass doors, at "attention", looking at us. I guess at the exact stroke of 10am, they bowed to us, then opened the doors. As we walked in, as we went by every single counter and person working there, they bowed. It was a little disconcerting to say the least!. Then in the lobby, which was quite impressive, was this great piece of art/statue, and a sitting area.

We went downstairs to the food section, and OH MY GOSH! An entire town down there, with everything imaginable. You can get your luck there and take it to go, pick up dinner for the family. We focused on the Japanese Sweets area, purchasing a couple different things to try. Interestingly enough ... the "sweets" just don't seem as "sweet" as in the US.

From there we walked over to the Imperial Palace Complex, where we had booked a tour of the grounds. On the corner of the complex we came upon the moat that surrounded it, and we followed that up to this water fountain square, which had several lovely fountains.

The Imperial Palace is the residence and office of the Emperor of Japan. The complex contains the main palace, the private residences, a museum, and administrative offices. We entered through one of the gates and then into the visitors center. You are only allowed to enter if you have made reservations for the tour in advance although the tour itself is free. We entered the vistors center and sat down with our audio guides, since the tour is in Japanese only. They played a video with information (English subtitles) and then we headed out on our walk. The guide would tell us what # in the audioguide.

This is the Fujimi-yagura, or Mt Fuji-view keep.

Then the administrative offices building, which houses the Imperial Household Agency and was build in the 1930's.

Chowaden Reception Hall is the largest building in the palace and is where official state functions are held. There is a huge square (Kyuden Totei Plaza) in front where people gather every year for the emperor's birthday and on January 2nd when the emperor addresses the public and the family waves to the people.

To one side of the Reception Hall is this garden that has these two things that look like hills, that are actually trees and shrubs that are grown and trimmed to look like hills.

Over a bridge with these lovely lamp posts and then we saw this other great building up on a hill.

There is also the ruins of the old Donjon

After a little rest, we headed back out at night to the Ginza area, to see the great lights in the streets.

Dinner was at a little sushi place, so sushi for both breakfast and dinner. The fish was really fresh .. they kept it near the front door.

Then these are pictures of Tokyo at night from the Observation deck at the Government offices. The city just goes on and on and on....