Susan's Shanghai Blog - Week 110

This is our "see Tokyo" day. And how better to start a day in Tokyo than having a sushi breakfast at the Tsujki fish market. What was great about where we were staying in Ginza was that the fish market was only about a 15 minute walk. We walked around a little bit and settled on Sushizanmai. It was pretty big for the sushi places that we normally go to in Japan and it was busy for the morning as there was a waiting line. We didn't have to wait very long before we were ushered to our seats at the counter (YEAH!!!)

From our counter seats, we had a perfect view of the fresh fish, including tuna, shrimp, and scallops. They placed our black slate plate with generous heaps of pickled ginger.

We had a perfect view of the various sushi masters as they made the sushi on demand.

I'm not sure exactly what was in these, but this one chef was creating a whole line of the same sushi pieces. We could easily see the pat of sushi rice, then he wrapped a piece of nori around each one. After that, we didn't see what type of seafood got put on top, but I'm somewhat thinking maybe a caviar, since I see those alot on menus.

Here was our breakfast ... Tuna, Shrimp, Salmon, Crab, and (I think) Red Snapper. Tom then added a scallop and another couple that I don't remember what were.

You can tell the fish was fresh .. we could see them bringing in the containers of fish!

I wanted to get a picture of this, because Tokyo has absolutely the best directional information in the metro systems that we have ever seen (and we've been in alot of metro systems). They have this great map that shows buildings and then for a huge number of buildings, stores, govenment offices, and attractions, they give you which exit you should go out. Here there are only 6 exits but look at how many things they list. They also list everything in both Japanese and English.

We've been to Tokyo multiple times before, so our See Tokyo day was limited to the set of things that we hadn't seen before (or so we thought). Our first stop was the Skytree. This is the tallest freestanding broadcasting tower in the world at 634 meters tall. There are two observation decks (at 350 meters and 450 meters). Now, I'm assuming that this tower is built to withstand almost anything including earthquakes, but our plan to go to the 450 meter observation deck was foiled by ..... wind! The tower was closed for the day due to windy conditions. Go figure, our one day to see the Skytree and it was closed! So instead, we grabbed a few pictures and headed to the next item on our list.

A short metro stop away is the area of Asakusa and the Kappabashi Dogugai Street. This is a 100-year-old shopping area which is purely for kitchenwares. The 800-meter long street is lined on both sides with over 170 wholesale stores selling everything you can imagine for a restaurant kitchen. We were there a bit early and not all of them were open yet, but we quickly stopped at a plastic japanese food store. Outside of almost every restaurant in a japan they have a window or set of shelves or something with plastic food replicas or samples. They are mostly handmade from polyvinyl chloride and carefully sculpted to look like the actual dishes. The models are custom-tailored to restaurants and even common items such as ramen will be modified to match each establishment's food. In Japan, there is fierce competition and it is a very lucrative business. A single restaurant may order a complete menu of plastic items costing over a million yen. We stopped by one and picked up a plastic sushi magnet to add to our magnet collection.

From there, the next stop was Ueno for the Ameyoko market. We got there are, lo and behold, we had been there before! I specifically remembered going there on one of our first trips to Tokyo. We spent time walking around since today was much busier then when I were there last time. As we were walking through, we stopped briefly at this first shop/stall where this guy was saying alot in Japanese to these ladies that were there. From what I can gather (with my non-existent Japanese and only watching what was happening), you give me 1000 yen and he starts filling this bag with lots and lots of small "sample-size" food items (cookies, dried fruits, nuts). And like a shopping-network show, just when you think he's done, he says "oh but wait, there is more for you that I can add to the bag!". Isn't it great when you have no idea what they are actually saying and you can come up with your own script???

They had all kinds of little stores there: lots of shirts, bags, jeans, shoes, as well as dry tea, dry fruits, and nuts. There are also alot of fresh and dried seafood stands.

We did lunch within the Ameyoko market at a little 2-story place that had a variety of different types of Japanese food. We were shown upstairs where there were some typical Japanese low-tables with cushions as well as the counter. We got one menu of mixed tempura and one of tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlet). Both came with pickles, rice, and soup. If you look at the first picture, you can see the difference between this tempura and what we got last night. This tempura batter is much heavier and you got almost equal parts of ingredient and batter.

The Yusakuni Shrine was founded by Emperor Meiji to commemorate those who had died in service to the Japanese Empire during the Meiji Restoration. It has been expanded over the years to include about 2.5 million individuals who died in various conflicts including the Boshin War of 1868 up through World War II. It is quite a controversial shrine since the shrine includes over 1,000 war criminals, including 14 "Class A" war criminals, from World War II and the shrine's historical revisionism. The tensions around the shrine has intensified following visits by senior government officials including several prime ministers.

Coming from the nearby metro station, you see this large gateway to the shrine. The original main gate was erected in 1921 on the 50th anniversary of the Yasakuni Shrine and then removed in 1943 to be used in "the war effort". The new gate was reconstructed from donations and is the tallest such gate in Japan.

Between this main gate and the inner gate to the shrine, there was a flea market setup along the side. It was not ideal conditions since, as you can see, there was still snow laying around on the ground which was melting making everything wet and muddy.

Then we got to the inner gate of the shrine. You could stand in front of the shrine building and pray, but there was no way to enter it, so we headed over to the Yushukan Museum.

Yushukan museum was established in 1882 and contains some 100,000 artifacts including paintings and other works of art as well as military history artifacts. We only went into the open lobby and didn't go through the whole museum. In the lobby were a couple really cool things. First, a Type 0 carrier-based fighter, which we know of as a "zero". It first saw action in the fall of 1940. It has excellent maneuverability and long range, making it the best carrier-based fighter in the world at the time. The model is a Model 52 which included improvements such as a narrower wingspan, rounded wingtips, and individual exhaust stacks which allowed the plane to fly faster.

One of the things that I thought was really interesting was how the wheels went up into the belly of the plane and had the bottom part of the plane attached to the outer side of the wheel so that once raised, the bottom of the plane was fully enclosed.

Behind the plane was a Model C56 Locomotive, No 31, from the Thai-Burma railroad. It was made in 1936 by Nippon Sharyo and originally ran in the Ishikawa Prefecture. It was moved South and took part in the opening of the Thai-Burma Railroad and was used by the Thai national railroad until its' retirement in 1977. It was brought back in 1979 to the museum.

There were also two cannons: a Model 89 15cm Cannon from 1929 and a Model 96 15cm Howitzer from 1936. The Howitzer was recovered after the war by the US military and displayed in Okinawa before being given by the US over to the Yasukuni Shrine in 1966.

One of the items on Tom's "must do" lists was a stop at the Honda Showroom. We wanted to see the new Fit, which is already available in Japan but not yet released in the US. However, we got there and there was no Fit anywhere to be found. They had 10 or 12 different cars ... and ASIMO, the Honda robot. We arrived just in time to catch the ASIMO show. ASIMO, an acronym for Advanced Step in Innovative MObility, is a humanoid robot developed by Honda and designed to be a multi-functional mobile assistant. ASIMO incorporates predicted movement control, allowing for increased joint flexibility and a smoother, more human-like walking motion. After the show, you could go get your picture taken with ASIMO, which we skipped but a set of little Japanese girls took full advantage.

It was starting to get to the end of the day, so we headed to our last attraction: the Tokyo Tower. At 1,093 ft, it is the second-tallest structure in Japan after the Tokyo Skytree that we went to earlier in the day. The structure is an Eiffel Tower-inspired lattice tower that is painted white and international orange to comply with air safety regulations. It was built in 1958 and also has 2 observation decks, one at 490 feet and one at 820 feet.

We went up to the first observation deck and walked around, looking at the various sights in the skyline. We had thought about going up to the very top observation deck, but it was getting late in the day with the sun setting, and the line to get to the upper deck was LOOONNNNGGG! So we skipped it and focused on the skyline from this first deck. In the first picture, if you look closely in the middle of the picture, you can see the faint outline of the Skytree.

We got to one part where you could see Mount Fuji faintly, which was really a great picture in the setting sun, with the dark orange coating the top of the mountain range moving up to the lighter yellow at the peak. As you can tell from the number of pictures, I thought it was a really cool thing.

Here we were getting pictures across into the Tokyo Bay. You can see the snow still on the ground in some areas. The bridge that you see here is the Rainbow Bridge. The Rainbow Bridge is a suspension bridge that is over 2600 feet long with the main span of just over 1900 feet. It took 6 years to complete and was opened in 1993. The towers supporting the bridge are white in color, designed to harmonize with the skyline of central Tokyo seen from Odaiba. There are lamps placed on the wires supporting the bridge, which are illuminated into three different colors, red, white and green every night using solar energy obtained during the day.

It was quite dark when we left, and they had these 3-foot tall or so little Tokyo Towers lit up that were arranged in the shape of a heart (I assume for Valentines Day).

We also tried to get a few pictures looking up, and of the lights. From dusk to midnight, the floodlights illuminate the entire tower. Sodium vapor lamps are used from October 2 to July 6 to cover the tower in an orange color and then from July 7 to October 1, the lights are changed to metal halide lamps to illuminate the tower with a white color. The reasoning behind the change is a seasonal one. The lighting designer, Motoko Ishii, thought that orange is a warmer color and helps to offset the cold winter months while white is thought of as a cool color that helps during the hot summer months.

Then we headed over to our dinner at Gonpachi. This was a really interesting restaurant, especially in Tokyo where we are used to tiny little 10-seat places with only counter seating. The location we went to is in a re-created traditional Japanese warehouse (kura) and it has high ceilings and a central, open kitchen. There are 3 levels and thanks to our great friend who made reservations, we had front-row seats in the bar in front of the kitchen. Some people say that it was the inspiration for the restaurant scene in the movie Kill Bill.

I don't think they were quite ready for us yet (or maybe they do this to all foreigners) but they gave us a thing of sake to drink and escorted us back outside where there was a window into the soba noodle maker. Here you can see how he hand-cuts the soba noodles with this huge knife.

Back inside, we took a set of pictures of the kitchen, which was laid out right in front of us. They do a lot of yakitori which you see them cooking.

We went with sochu and a nice Kirin beer (when in Japan, right?)

We went with 2 different set menu's so that we got a wide assortment of different foods to try, and then we just shared everything. We got started was a trio of Tapas-style appetizers along with a small "house salad". There was also this other appetizer that I didn't catch what it was exactly.

The tuna belly sashimi was like butter!

The assortment of tempura was not at the same level as our dinner the other night, but then again, that was a restaurant that ONLY did tempura. It was still really good with a light, flaky batter.

This is an example of why the set menu was great. We would have never ordered this on our own, but it came as part of the set menu and was really good ... a soft-shell crab fritter. I don't know that I had ever really had soft-shell crab just because I have it in my mind that there is still going to be a shell. But really, it doesn't (or at least, it doesn't seem to have one).

The shrimp and crab dumpling was a little interesting ... especially coming from China where there are lots of dumplings. Good flavor although the dumping itself looked a little odd.

We then got two different grilled fish dishes: a miso-glazed blue fish and a miso-glazed black cod.

Then a variety of yakitori including tuna belly, eringi mushrooms, chicken thigh, ground chicken, and Japanese Kuroge Beef Sirloin.

This is Japanese Kuroge Roast Beef. Again, not my favorite, really. It was a bit chewier than I really liked.

We ordered a bit of sake to go along with the soba noodles. We finished with an ice cream dessert.

The "staff singing Happy Birthday" (or what we assumed was Happy Birthday) is also alive and well in Tokyo!

We headed back to our hotel and were looking for a coffee place and just happened to stumble over a Starbucks. Little did we know that this was the 1st Starbucks in all of Japan.