Tsukiji Fish Market and Akihabara

After our Friday night out with Vaughn (who I hope was not unpleasantly hungover for his morning flight to Hong Kong), Brian and I stayed in the Toyoko Hotel a few subway stops from the famous Tsukiji Fish Market at Tsukiji-shijo station. Below are a few photos, but we've posted more in the web album here: http://www.japanrider.com/Albums/Japan/Tsukiji/index.html

This market has been a bit of a tourist attraction for years but we'd never gone. There are huge tuna auctions early in the morning which apparently is quite a sight. However, we got a bit of a late start on the day and didn't get to the market until 7:30 in the morning. We may have missed the auction, but we still had a really fun morning looking at all the other fish for sale. We thought about buying some nice fresh fish to take home, but neither of us really wanted to walk around Tokyo for the rest of the day carrying raw fish.

Hurrying through the market:



We did at least get a wonderful taste of the wares when we went to a sushi shop in the market for breakfast. Of course, sushi isn't perfect unless you have a little atsukan (hot sake) to enjoy it with.

Atsukan and Sushi for Breakfast:



This tuna was so fresh it just melted in our mouth:


Sushi Chefs at Work:



After breakfast and a little more market touring we went to Akihabara (a.k.a. Electric City), which is famous for its Otaku (geek) culture and Maid Cafes. We spent a few hours walking around all the shops, looking at the newest and most interesting gadgets, but didn't buy much other than a new PC fan (with LEDs).

Akihabara got its start in light bulbs:


Gotta love the brands around here: