The tower in the background is "Tokyo Tower" - supposed to be replica of the Eifel Tower but if the Eifel Tower is anything like this tower, I will be very disappointed. I don't get to Paris for another couple of months so I guess I'll have to wait and see.
On the first sunny day, I woke up early (5am) to go to the Tsukiji Fish Market - the world's largest fish auction and market. Amazing! A really cool experience...fish everywhere!
This is one of the "booths" selling fresh fish. While I didn't count every booth - I would guess there were 1,000's of booths. Some of the styrofoam containers have live fish - talk about fresh!
Here are some more pictures of the market:
I think the above is tuna - but I could be wrong.
The guy above took about 5 minutes to cut through this fish very carefully. Apparently he is cutting it up for sushi restaurants so they make surgical like cuts (according to the English speaking guy standing next to me). I'll also note that this is not a "tourist destination" per se rather a real fish market. There were several tourists walking around taking pictures, but you could tell the workers were a little annoyed by us.
I'm guessing these are eels - nasty slimy looking things. I love unagi, but after seeing these bins (and smelling them!), I question my tastes.
The picture below is just outside the fish market - it's hard to tell here but behind the green banners is a sushi restaurant. The guidebook I have says it's the best sushi in all of Japan, maybe the entire world. Apparently everyone else has the same guidebook because the line was about 2 hours long.
In case you're not keeping track of the time...this is now about 6:30 in the morning...and the line is two hours long?? The restaurant is no bigger than my kitchen with a long slender bar and 12 bar stools...no tables. Well, I took the bait (pun intended) and waited in line. It was well worth the wait...the best sushi I've ever had! If you ever make it to Tokyo - you must go to Sushi Dai.
I'll note here that I must have had sushi 9-10 times while in Tokyo. I love sushi, but even I'll admit that's a little excessive (and so will my wallet!) I even ate at one of those "conveyor belt" restaurants in an attempt to save some money. If you haven't seen one before, it's basically a long bar that wraps throughout the restaurant like a maze. On top of the bar is a conveyor belt that sends sushi on different colored plates - each color being a different price. You take whatever plates you want, stack them up, and when you're done the waitress counts up the number of plates you have in your stack and gives you your bill. It was only ¥1700 (about $16 US) for about 10 plates of sushi (two pieces per plate). Not bad, but the quality was nothing like the higher end restaurants.
Enough about raw fish...after touring the Tsukiji market, I walked around the Ginza district which is a major shopping area. Every major retailer you can imagine. The thing that amazes me most about these shopping districts (and other shopping districts in Japan and what I experienced in China) is that there doesn't appear to be a necessity to be located on the first floor. They have several 8, 9, and 10 story buildings with stores on every level. In the US, if your store was located on the 10th story of a building - you'd be BK in a month! Granted the nice stores (Rolex, Gucci, Giorgio Armani, etc.) are all located on the first floor, but it amazes me that someone thinks it's a good idea to put their store on the 10th floor of a building. And what's worse, there are 20-30 of these buildings all in the same district. Here's an example in Ginza:
Building after building, all 5+ stories high with shops on each floor. Sorry, but as a real estate guy, this just doesn't make sense to me.
I also noticed this car being advertised by a Nissan dealership...
...I think i may trade in the Maserati when I get home. Can't you see me tooling around downtown Denver in one of these? Ha!
Just off the main drag of the "westernized shopping districts" is where the real shopping takes place. Below is a picture of one of these streets. I can't figure out how all the vendors can make a living when they are all selling basically the same stuff...chopsticks, seaweed, dried fish and a thousand different types of hard candy.
Random picture of CBRE in the HOOOUUUUSSSEEE!!
PS - I'm having trouble with this program I'm using to post these blogs (BlogPress) - it keeps crashing after I insert a picture. If anyone has any better suggestions for the iPad or iPhone - I'd love to hear them!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:４丁目,Minato Ward,Japan
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