Ellen Isaacs: Travel journal: Tsukiji Fish Market, Akihabara electronics, Hama Rikyu Garden

We did indeed wake up around 4pm after 8 hours of sleep, so we got up. It's the first time I've ever been up that early without feeling hazy. Walendo agreed to come with me to the Tsukiji wholesale fish market. By around 5am we were heading out to the metro station, which we'd seen the night before. In the three block walk, we saw several groups of men and women all decked out, clearly heading home after a long night out — and this was after a Monday night. Roppongi is supposedly the neighborhood for night clubs and young people looking for a good time, so I guess that's true.

For those interesting in how the Tokyo metro works:

Tokyo metro
ticket machine
We were a little anxious about figuring out the subway system, but that went fairly smoothly. Our station, Roppongi, has two lines, the Toei Oedo line and the Hibiya Line. We followed signs to the Hibiya (Hih-BEE-ya) line and found the ticket booths. To get a ticket you have to indicate the price of the destination, put in the money, and a ticket comes out. There aren't zones per se, although there seem to be a few standard prices for the fares. The touch screen had buttons for those common fare prices and a button for English. I think if you press English you can enter the destination and it will give you the fare, but that's not how we did it.

Signs indicate price
of tickets to other stations
Our hotel receptionist had told us our destination was Y160 (about $1.30), so we pressed that button, entered the money, and got the ticket. Later we discovered that you can look up the price of your destination on the signs above (see photo right), which either show a table of station names with prices in Japanese & English, or a subway map with numbers at the stations indicating the price to get there. Most stations had these maps, but not all, so sometimes we had to guess. In that case, if you guessed too little, they have machines at the destination that let you pay the difference and get a new ticket to use to get out of the station. For now, though, we were glad we'd been told the right amount to pay. We put the ticket into the gate and it came out the other end — we'd be needing it to get out. Once through the gates, we had to decide which set of stairs to go down. It turned out they had a nice diagram that showed all the stations in a horizontal display with Roppongi (our station) in red. You find your destination and if it's to the left of Roppongi, you go down the left stairs, and vice versa for right (see photo below). The stops were printed in English as well as Kanji, so it was easy to find our stop. Nice!

Sign showing stations
& which track to use

We also noticed that all the stops were numbered, so instead of having to read the unfamiliar names at every stop, we just remembered that Tsukiji was stop #10. We'd started at stop #4, so we had 6 stops to go and we could check our progress by looking at the number at each stop. Later we learned that about 10 years ago, the Prime Minister at the time decided to make Tokyo much more friendly to international travelers and had many signs redone to include English and I believe reorganized the subway system to make it simpler. They did a good job because we found it very straightforward to use. If there hadn't been any English or numbers, it would have been a much bigger challenge to use.

The one difficult part of the subway system is figuring out where to exit. Each station seems to have anywhere from 5 to 12 (or more) exits that can emerge in quite distant places, so you have to look on a street map to see where you want to come out and follow signs to that exit. We were using the Tokyo City Atlas: A Bilingual Guide, which was very helpful for this. It also has a subway and JR train system map in the front, which I used extensively. The only problem with it is that, although it has blown up sections of parts of the city, those sections are not always contiguous so there are gaps in the central city area and several times I wanted to go in those gaps.

End metro section.

Food stalls in
Tsukiji Outer Market
Once at the Tsukiji station (pronounced SKEE-gee — they don't pronounce the "u" if it's after an s and before a k), we checked the map of the nearby streets posted at the station exit and walked toward the fish market. First we encountered some small shops selling various fresh and packaged foods and a few stalls with about four seats where people were eating bowls of food. More stalls were selling various goods such as chopsticks and shoes and mats and so on.

Finally we found our way to Tsukiji, the fish market, which is inside a giant warehouse. There are a few wide aisles crossed by many narrow ones with makeshift booths selling all kinds of fish, including giant tunas, eels, octopus, squid and lots of other kinds we couldn't identify, all displayed in Styrofoam containers. At some stalls, men were boning and cutting up the fish. Meanwhile, people driving narrow powered carts would drive by with stacks of the fish they'd just bought. I tried to stay out of the way as much as I could as I took lots of photos of the fish, the stalls, and the overall scene. We were by no means the only tourists there — lots of people were taking snapshots with point-and-shoots or their phones. After a little while Walendo felt awkward trying to stay out of the way (and pained at how I was getting in the way), so he left to explore the stalls while I stayed to take more pictures. I watched a man cutting up a large tuna, using a sword to make the big cuts to bisect the fish. I was struck by how clean it all was. He used a cloth to wipe the fish down frequently, and he'd dip the cloth in a bucket of running water on a regular basis, also washing his hands. Walendo noted that, despite all the fish there, the place didn't have a much of a fishy smell at all. There was, however, a lot of liquid on the floor so I was glad I'd worn my sneakers.

Tsukiji fish market Fish displayed at
one of the stalls Tsukiji fishmonger
boning tuna

Chef preparing sushi
After another half hour of photos (not really enough), we met up again and walked along the stalls, looking for a place to get some breakfast. It was only about 7am or so. A man was standing outside one sushi restaurant inviting people to come in, so we decided to try it. They had a menu with pictures on it, so it would be easy enough to order. We sat at the sushi bar and I pointed to my selections. Walendo, not a raw fish eater, had already found something to his liking at one of the stalls when we had split up. I was happy to have my very first sushi in Japan, and it was deliciously fresh. So what if it was for breakfast?

After eating, we decided to walk a few long blocks to a park that had been recommended in the guide books, Hama Rikyu. This part of town wasn't particularly pretty, just a busy street with boxy buildings along it. When we got to the park, it was closed. It was only 8am and they open at 9am. It's not very often that we ever get anywhere before it opens in the morning!

Buying food at
Outer Market stalls
Defeated, we walked back to the metro station, this time stopping at some of those food booths so Walendo could buy some of the savory treats. He didn't know what anything was but just pointed based on how they looked and he was quite happy with his selections. A little while after we got back to the room, Walendo got a call from one of his colleagues. Two of them, Bob and Mike, wanted to visit Akihabara, the electronics district, and they invited us to join them. Walendo had been planning to go first chance he got, so he was psyched.

We met up with them and, being the pros that we now were, we showed them how to use the metro. Akihabara was on the same line as Tsukiji, just further down (station #15), so we repeated our earlier procedure, but this time we had to figure out how much to pay. I noticed they had a chart of all the stations and their prices from here, listed in both Japanese and English. This time it was Y190 ($1.50). We all got our tickets and off we went.

Three guys buried
behind all the technology
Shortly after arriving at Akihabara we came upon a big store called Yodobashi that had the visual cacophony that you expect from an electronics store — banners hanging from the ceilings, colorful posters, blinking lights, and so on. We made a beeline to the store. In no time, the three of them were absorbed in the gizmos and gadgets. Many of the stores here go up instead of out, and this one had about 8 floors, one for laptop-like things, one for cameras, one for components, and so on — even one for kitchen gadgets. I checked out some camera lenses for my Canon and found a Sigma lens that would be very handy (18-200mm) but didn't want to buy without checking it out on the web. (Later I discovered the quality wasn't that good so I was glad I passed.) Otherwise, I mostly tried to take photos of the store and them shopping in it.

Hubbub in Akihabara
After getting a good taste of Yodobashi, we moved on to see what other options there were. We found an area that resembled New York's Seventh Avenue, with small shops selling goods on the sidewalks, flowing into the store. Anything with a plug or a battery or flashing lights, they had. In fact, they had just plain old flashing lights — the kind you see on the top of detectives' cars. The guys were mesmerized. Well, I should say that Walendo and Mike were mesmerized and Bob was willing to humor them. Apparently they let him into the computer scientist club without having to pledge his devotion to the gadget god. They browsed these displays and went into a few of the shops, all of which were smaller than the first even though they also had multiple floors. Mike kept looking for other superstores but we just didn't find any. Meantime, I was having fun taking photos of all the visual clutter and the rush of people walking around. When I wasn't taking photos, I wound up walking next to either Mike or Bob and we'd chat a bit. It was nice to start to get to know some of Walendo's colleagues a little bit.

Typical banner with
picture of dishes
After a while we decided to try to figure out how to have lunch. (Amazing how long a day can be when you start it at 4am.) We had a recommendation from a guide book but we couldn't figure out how its map related to where we were, so we abandoned that and just looked around. Most of the restaurants have either pictures of the food out front or plastic models of the dishes, which is very helpful to foreigners. We saw a small place that had food that looked reasonable, and went in. Now we just had to figure out how to order. One of the staff came out to the front with us and had us point to the dishes we wanted. Then he took us to this sort of vending machine inside the store. You choose the button for the dish you want, you put in your money, and you get a ticket, which you bring to the front counter. We bumbled around trying to get the right amount of money and, after more help from him, managed to get our tickets. By the time we got up to the counter, our dishes were ready (probably with a little input from the helpful staff person). We all got some variation on a bowl of rice with some meat and sauce, and a soup with noodles. I wasn't sure what to expect, but mine turned out to be delicious, especially the soup. What a relief! We'd managed to order a meal and eat at a restaurant. Thanks to the helpfulness of that man.

Bob suggested we check out one of the gardens after lunch, so we pulled out a map to figure out which was most convenient. We realized that the garden Walendo and I had tried to go to early would be on our way back, so that was the plan. We got back on the train and got off at Tsukiji and then walked the 15-20 minutes to Hama Rikyu, Mike and Walendo griping about their tired legs along the way. Thankfully, this time the park was open.

Pond and teahouse
at Hama Rikyu Garden
After paying our entry fee of Y300 (about $2.40), we wandered into the park, quickly finding a place to sit and rest. It was a nice park, but not quite as Japanese as I'd expected. It looked like they were going to be planting some flowers in the area where we stopped, but for now there were bags of fertilizer lying in rows. After resting our legs, we walked around the rest of the park and came upon a teahouse by a lake with an arched bridge looking more like the typical serene Japanese setting I'd imagined. Mike wanted to have some tea, so we tried it out. We paid our Y500 ($4.00) up front and then found a space to sit on the tatami mats on the perimeter of the floor. After a while, a woman in a robe sat in front of each of us in turn and presented us with a bowl of green tea and a little treat in the shape of a flower. She bowed to us and we bowed back. The treat turned out to be made of bean paste and was sweet. It tasted okay. I wound up sitting next to Bob, so I got to chat with him a bit and hear a little about his background and his thoughts about his work.

By now it was late afternoon and everyone was ready to head back. Once at Roppongi, we first stopped at a real grocery store that Bob and Mike had found earlier. They had things like cereal and fruits, which meant I could have a normal breakfast, so I was happy about that. We stocked up on some staples and headed out. By the time we got back to the hotel, we all just wanted to collapse and rest a while. But by now the rest of Walendo's work gang had arrived and they had arranged for a nice dinner at a restaurant... in 20 minutes. So we took quick showers and met everyone down in the lobby.

We were a group of 8 people, so we piled into two cabs and went to the restaurant, a place called the Tokyo T. It was in a pretty garden setting and apparently they make the food from ingredients grown locally. We had to split up into two tables, one on a floor and one on mats. Bob had taken his shoes off to go up to the mat table, but then he wound up at the floor table. They asked him to put his shoes back on and when he declined, they really seemed uncomfortable about it. They urged him again but he just said no. I guess they didn't know how to deal with that.

Although we hadn't ordered anything, they soon started to bring us small bowls of various items, five in all. Each time, the friendly waiter tried to come up with the English words for what it was, and one of the people at our table, Mark, usually tried to help out by suggesting possibilities. Sometimes we understood. I'm not the most adventurous in my food tastes, so I was a little anxious. The first dish was a slate gray colored square with a pudding consistency with what we think was tahini on top. I could barely eat it and so didn't finish it, which made me feel rude. Next was a tomato gelatin, which was strange but edible. One of the dishes was sashimi, which I quite like, so that was easy enough. I can't remember the other two, but I was able to eat most of them. At that point, I was already feeling reasonably sated, but now was when they came out with a menu. It was about 8 typed pages, mostly in English but with many terms we didn't know. We were supposed to pick two things. After getting some help from the other table, which had two people who had been to Japan several times, we chose two, one of which was a dish that came with steaming broth and some raw fish and vegetables. You dip the food in the broth to cook it, kind of like a fondue. That was pretty tasty. By now I was full, but they wanted us to choose another dish for our rice course. We all passed. Then came dessert. One of the items on the menu was Something-or-Other with Fresh Fu. Walendo was curious to know what Fu was and how you would know if it was fresh. The table ordered it just to find out, along with another bean pasty thing. Even after getting it, no one had any idea what Fu is. It was a hollow green ball of something kind of chewy with some liquid inside. We were unable to determine if it was fresh. Since nothing was chocolate and I was full, I passed on dessert. By the end of the meal, I was a little concerned about whether I was going to like Japanese food other than sushi. But I'm glad to say that the following days the food was much more to my liking, so this may have just been a little too adventurous for me.

By the time we got home around 10pm, we were ready to collapse. It truly had been a very long day.

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