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:

Shinjuku and Shibuya: The Most Exciting Show on Earth?

On Saturday, we ventured into the Big Toe for some fine dining and general "big city" fun before heading to the Motor Show on Sunday. We also had arranged to meet a friend of Brian's in town just for a very limited amount of time on business. It was her first trip to Japan and we had a great time taking her around Shinjuku and Shibuya - two of the busiest areas of Tokyo. In fact, rumor has it that Shinjuku station is the busiest station in the world, and I have to say that I can well believe it. I used my cell phone to take the video below on exiting Shinjuku station at about 1 p.m. - NOT a busy time of day (it's not a great video - I have to get some practice, but I do think it shows Shinjuku station a bit, and I also wanted to try out Blogger's new "upload video" feature):


After lunch and window shopping around the east side of Shinjuku station, we went to the west (businessy and non-trendy) side where we checked into our hotel and then met Natalie. From there, we went to Shibuya - another very lively part of town. Here's a photo of Brian and Natalie standing outside at the Hachiko exit of Shibuya station at the most famous intersection in Japan:




Something Natalie said while going from shop to shop in Shibuya summed everything up: Sensory Overload...

EDIT: The Blogger video feature is great, but it seems to have compressed my video and reduced the quality a bit. I'm not complaining, though - I did take the video on my cell phone after all!

Tokyo Motor Show Favourites

The Tokyo Motor Show provided a great day of visual delights - sweet motorbikes and cars, and, of course, yes, good looking models!

This is Brian's favorite - a Yamaha Sakura (taken by Brian with a Nikon D40x).



This is the Kawasaki Ninja (yes, the model's pretty nice, too!).



Toyota Lexus:


Mitsuoka Orochi - a car that was voted "the ugliest super car ever" by Jalopnik (click here for the article). Frankly, I kinda like it. . .


So those are a few of our top pics from the Motor Show; we also, of course, spend some fun time around Shinjuku and Shibuya - those pics coming tomorrow!

World Press Photo and a Day in Tokyo

The typhoon mostly passed us by, and though we didn't get the clear skies that usually follow typhoons, we did get a bit of good weather yesterday, and since this was the last weekend that the World Press Photo 2007 photo exhibit was going to be showing, we decided to spend our Saturday in the gigantic metropolis of Tokyo.



The exhibit, at the Museum of Photography in Ebisu, was very well worth the time and effort to get there. Some of the photos were simply excellent samples of skilled photography while others were harrowing in their presentation of human suffering and death. The photo seen here on the book cover, by Spencer Platt, won Photo of the Year. It shows affluent-looking Lebanese refugees returning to their homes amidst debris of the attacks.

We only spent the day in Tokyo, divided between Shinjuku - where we did some shopping at the bike shops and the liquor/foreign food shops - and Ebisu, where we had a good Mexican lunch (complete with a couple of Margaritas) before visiting the museum.

A lull in the crowds outside the "quiet side" of Shinjuku station:


Tokyo is usually overwhelmingly crowded, and though a fabulous megalopolis, if I'm going to be going to Tokyo I prefer to go on Saturdays, since I need my Sunday to recover from the hectic pace and human masses encountered there!