Thankfully, we weren't exposed to the horror of Tokyo rush hour and we got there at about 6.15. After coming out of the station we smelled the fish straight away and followed someone carrying a large bag and wearing large wellingtons. He lead us to the outskirts of the markets. Swarming around were a fleet of speeding carts – essentially Segway scooters with trailers for driving around fish at high speeds. After avoiding death and navigating through the lorry bays we were amongst the fish. The narrow pathways were filled with people going about their business. The smell wasn't as strong as you might expect as all the fish was exceedingly fresh. We carried on deeper into the market and after playing real life Frogger with another lane of carts we found the tuna auctions. The floor was covered with frozen tunas, just in from the boats. Potential buyers were swarming around hacking at the tails to inspect the colour of the meat. A single auctioneer stood on a box conducting the auctions at breakneck speed. Needless to say we had no idea what was going on. Luckily for us this was before the recent clampdowns on tourists.
One by one the tunas were dragged away and loaded onto carts. With each tuna costing the same as a small car, there was clearly a large amount of money flying around. We wandered away and on our subsequent wanderings saw what became of the tunas – some people took hatchets to them, some used band saws and some just attacked them with very sharp knives.
The range of seafood on display was amazing – a lot of it was still alive in tanks. The entire market was full of activity and the small passageways between stalls frequently became blocked by people eager to examine the wares on offer. As we left, the motorised carts became less frequent and we began to stop worrying about being run down by boxes of fish. Most of the sushi joints in the market were rammed, but the lonely planet guided us to a restaurant a few hundred metres away that was almost empty. We ordered the platter which came with a wide selection from the common through to the unusual. we set about it until only 2 were left: crab paste and salmon roe. We decided to take one each... In hindsight, we shouldn't have left these until last.
We emerged to find it was still only 7 am. We got the subway back to Shinjuku – again without any sign of a Tokyo rush hour. As with the rest of East Asia, nothing really opens until around 10 am so we wandered around Shinjuku's red light district taking some of the back roads walking through the seedy areas complete with strip clubs and back alley bars. In the early hours of daylight, the streets were peaceful and uneventful.
I am a big fan of the classic Jrock band X Japan. They are the latest band to hop on the reunion bandwagon despite the death of lead guitarist Hide. The reason I mention this is that I'm fairly sure we nearly got run down by their tour bus (a big black bus with X Japan decorations all over it) just outside Bic Camera. We meandered back to the Government building to get a daytime view. Thanks to the crisp cool February weather we got some great views of Fuji San. We had a look around the nearest multi-storey Bic Camera store marvelling at all the gadgets. Surprisingly, there was a lot of xbox360 stuff despite it selling less that 3000 units per week. More expected was the whole host of BluRay equipment and not so much HD-DVD. Eventually we took the train out to Mitaka and, after stopping at the kwik-e-mart to get some more biscuits, walked down the small river to the Studio Ghibli museum. James had never seen a film from the Studio before, but the museum is very inspirational – even though it's all in Japanese. It's a shame that the film we saw, the whale hunt wasn't as good as the day I harvested a star, but the museum is still an excellent introduction to the animation basics and production. We walked back through Inokahira Park before getting lunch in one of the many French-style bakeries.
That evening, we met up with James' friend James (confusing?) and his girlfriend. James did 2 years on JET before going back to the UK and working for Accenture where he met James. He's now back in Japan doing an MBA (in Japanese!) We met up at Shinjuku and then went for shabu shabu – the traditional Mongolian self-cooking style at one of the many restaurants hidden away on the upper floor of the buildings. These are the places that foreigners never find. We set about an all you can eat/drink in 90 minutes deal getting through more than our fair share of beers and plates of meat. Afterwards we went for karaoke before catching the last train back to Ikebukuro. I haven't improved at karaoke since the last time.
Due to our very early start and late finish, we had a late start on Friday. We got our brunch from the kwik-e-mart before heading out to Tokyo station to wander around the Imperial Palace gardens. The temperature had picked up so we walked to our next destination: the Tokyo stock exchange. The exchange was computerised in the 1990s so visitors can wander around – the only people there were the computer security staff there to ensure no one hacked in and the news teams who report the financial news from the exchange historically. As seems to be the style of the time, the stock market lost ground whilst we were there.
We caught the subway to Ginza to look around the Sony building. As someone who works with OLEDs I was interested to see if they had the X-EL1 on display. The centre featured a LOT of large LCDs playing the Spiderman 3 trailer on endless replay. The X-EL1 was indeed on display. The picture quality was amazing – the clarity and “realness” of the picture was only let down by the small size (11”) and low resolution (960x540) compared to the cost (200,000yen), but once the cost comes down, they are definitely the future.
From here we decided to visit the controversial Yasukuni Shrine where recent Japanese prime ministers have drawn condemnation from Japan's neighbours for visiting. Various war criminals are enshrined there, but never ones to shirk away from controversy we went anyway.
The shrine appeared like most others. The Yūshūkan museum was adjacent, where the exhibits claim the Pacific War was fought in self-defence and hosts many war relics alongside a memorial to Radhabinod Pal – a justice who, the memorial claimed, rallied against the war crimes trials following the war. As the shrine closed we walked away from the setting sun and walked toward Akiba. On the way we stopped at another vending machine restaurant for our first taste of katsu kare – a dish almost entirely unlike curry. We carried on our way through the musical instrument district before hitting Akiba just as the last light from the day vanished, playing up the neon and overwhelming noise even more.
We browsed around the various shops – electrical, manga and toys/collectables half looking at the items on sale, half looking at the clientèle buying the goods. Not the otaku we were maybe expecting, but tired looking salarymen on their way home from work, browsing through the rows of scantily clad manga statuettes as if it were the most normal thing in the world: and in this city, it is.
2 comments:
The X JAPAN car wouldn't have been their tour bus, but a large moving advertisement, basically.
Though when did you see that? I htink they haven't been on the road after the Tokyo Dome 3 Day lives...
Where is the rest :o *waits*
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