sushi | Sporadic Journey

As we reached Shibuya Station, we made our way to our new Airbnb place. The first impression was “let’s run away from here” but we gave it a chance. Thinking about it now, we should have done it.

The place was not really clean, to use a euphemism. The room had a couple of mattress put on the floor with a plaid on top of each, instead of a blanket. But we were definitely too tired and hungry to argue. We left our stuff there and went looking for a place where to have dinner.

There was a place we wanted to visit since we arrived in Tokyo: Genki – sushi. The name was quite explanatory. One of the top ranked cheap eats in Shibuya according to TripAdvisor. Nothing could have prepared us for what awaited us.

The place is one of the best engineering work of this century, where the performance indicator is the amount of human interaction needed to perform the task of feeding some hungry humans. They minimised this value, building a snake-shaped restaurant where each person has more or less an A4 paper of room at his disposal to consume his meal.

The three food railways

Here comes the fun. The food is not served by employees, but using instead a three level magnetic operated rail. Basically, the customer orders his meal from the tablet located on the A4 paper sheet space he got assigned, magic forces materialise the slices of fish over the rice and promptly the food slides in front of his face (followed by a funny 8bit song). Overall it was a fun experience for us as we felt part of the Tokyo soul depicted in the documentaries. But we wanted more.
After reading some articles about Tokyo nightlife we decided to take a peak at Roppongi. It was described as the most alive part if the city during the night, but none of the authors of those articles were probably non-American.

As we took our first step out of the metro, we felt something was strange. Apparently the metro train was actually a modern piece of technology that teleported us straight in the heart of Brooklyn. Hookers, bouncers, and hip hop blasted from most of the clubs. Walking on the streets we were repeatedly asked in an native Bronx slang to “join the party”.
After few days of complete peace of mind we felt not safe anymore. We walked fast in the direction of the Tokyo tower, which was visible above the buildings. In 10 horrible minutes we were out of Roppongi.

Tokyo tower as seen while walking away from Roppongi

We kept walking for another 15 minutes and reached the Tokyo Tower. It looks a lot like a downsized Eiffel Tower, but with all the tall buildings placed all around, it has something more than its bigger version.

Tokyo Tower from below

After taking a couple of pictures we walked to the closest metro station and went back home.
We woke up quite early as we wanted to visit an Owl Cafe. Unfortunately when we got there it was still closed. We then tried to book the entrance in the number one Owl cafe in Tokyo, but there were no available ticket until the coming Sunday. No owls for us… Instead we made do with a more modest program: we went to visit the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, a free alternative to going up the Tokyo Tower.

Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building

From the 48th floor we looked down on all the expanse of Tokyo. It is amazing how wide it is. We couldn’t make out the edge of the city. On the same floor where the observatory is, we found a souvenir shop. We were quite impressed to find panties for plastic bottles. Japan weirdness hits once again.

Breathtaking view from the Government Building

Higher than the surrounding skyscrapers

As lunch time was approaching we went to Ikebukuro, at 鳥良商店南池袋店. For the first time since we were in Japan we didn’t have to eat prokaryotes! Here we ate chicken, both fried and grilled, and it was super tasty! Highly recommended!

Super yummy lunch

Done with lunch we walked to the local Pokemon Center. We didn’t really like it as it ended up being just an overpriced shop.

Charizard, Pikachu and… Saramon?

The only good point was the luxurious toilet next to it. We made good use of it…

The toilet controller

Relieved of our weights we took the metro to go visit the Imperial Palace. It was a delusion. We could not enter (nobody actually can) and as we were taking some nice photos of the sun setting over the palace garden, we were asked to leave.

Sunset on the Imperial Palace’s garden

We decided to pay another visit to Harajuku for a quick walk and visit some souvenir shops. As we were there we took another crepe at the same place where we did the first time we came here. After that we transferred to Akihabara to spend the evening.

Best crepes in Harajuku

Dwelling in Akihabara we saw a lot of maids on the road running away from anyone who was trying to take pictures of them.

Mega electronics shop in Akihabara

We decided to pay a visit to Don Quiote, a store selling everything, from food, to electronics, to sex toys… Here we found a plushie of a cat so detailed it had a butthole. Pure gold!

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Tired, we went back home. On the way we decided to eat something, so we hit 7eleven and bought some sushi, cold hamburger and a “piadina”.

Tomorrow we will take our first Shinkansen! Can’t wait to ride the famous bullet train.

Stay tuned for the next post.

Sure enough, we woke up. Thanks to the 2 alarms, plus 2 backup alarms, plus a snoozed one, we unlocked the “You didn’t oversleep” achievement!

We took our time to pack our backpack again, and went out to have breakfast… at the Tsukiji Fish Market. Before you ask, yes, we had breakfast chewing sushi, sushimi and other similar things… so much for our Italian background.

Before going we left our baggages in a locker at Shibuya Station: only 500 yen (~4.30€) for an entire day (24 hours). There are lockers in all the train station and are used by tourists as well as local people.

Free from our burden we made our way to Tsukiji: from Shibuja we took the Yamanote line to Shimbashi. From there we walked 15 minutes and got there.

Tsukiji outer fish market

Tsukiji is the biggest fish market in the world. People come here as early as 3 in the morning to bid on tunas, and more than 65 thousand people work here.

Just think about it: an average Italian city’s population works everyday in a fish market…

It is divided in two district: inner and outer market. The inner market is where the fish is sold in batches and the tourist are not allowed to enter until 10 AM. This is due to the fact that people walking around aimlessly may be dangerous for both themselves and the weird, totally safe “carts” that dwell in the area. The so called “turrets”.

Tsukiji three wheels cart

The outer market, on the other side, is open as early as the tuna bidding is over. It is basically a maze of narrow streets which run between shacks. Every shack is a small shop selling everything concerning fish, vegetables, fruit, dried food, and knives… I was so tempted to buy a personal forged and engraved one.

Ok. Back to food. We tried some delicacies while walking around the other market: first we got a couple of squid and octopus skewers, then we went for steamed dumplings.

Super tasty fried octopus and squid

Steamed dumlings

Then we saw some people lining outside a still closed sushi shop. We decided to line. Around 10AM it opened and we were allowed in. We ordered a combination of sushi, made just in front of us by a laughing, happy old man, and took a couple of plate from the conveyor belt.

Almost-alive-fresh sushi 🍣

When we felt satisfied we went out and kept walking.

After a while we encountered a little shrine on the east of the outer market.

Here Sara participated in the washing hand ceremony, and rang the bell wishing for something.

Small shire in Tsukiji

Soon after we went inside the inner market, being careful to not being run over by the “turrets”.

It is a true fish market, where fish is cut alive, made in pieces, boxed and sold. No place for weak of stomach.

Tsukiji Fish inner market

We didn’t spend too long here. The workers were already washing the tables and packing their stuff. No point in staying there too long.

We decided to visit Ueno park, as we read that the Sakura blossoming was still going on there. Well, it wasn’t a complete lie: we found two trees (in a entire park) with some pink petals on its branches. So much for full blossoming.

Firts blossomed sakura

Anyway, Sara looked enthusiatic. After all we came here for this, mainly.

Inside Ueno Park we went visiting the Toshogu Shrine, which was close to a Pagoda

Ueno Park Pagoda

Leaving the shrine we met a loud, huge, and friendly crow which landed on a lantern “Craacking” to the passerbys.

This fella here was bigger than a cat.

Going back to the park we found the second Sakura tree and asked someone to take us a picture (yuuu).

Picture under the Sakura

After this emotional Sakura adventure, we went to Asakusa. We decided to walk in the city instead of taking the metro, and we found some beautiful and characteristic views.

This intersection looked like a still image from an Anime

When we got close to Senso-ji we were so hungry that decided to have a cheat meal: melon pan with vanilla ice cream and a portion of caramelised apple pie. To be sure if they were tasty I had to try both before handling them to Sara.

Melon pan and Apple pie

In Senso-ji we visited a Buddhist temple were we got a journal were to collect the stamps from all the temples we are going to meet during our journey.