29 Mar 2006 - Japan (Tokyo) - Day 2

Woke up early morning to try to hit Tsukigi Fish market. Alarm went off at 4.30am (Sg time 3.30am) but was too tired to do so. Slept another half hour. Dressed up quickly and got off the hotel to Tsukigi around 5.30am. It was already bright and very cold. Good thing I wore two shirts. Taxi dropped me off at the entrance. From the outside, it looked like old chinatown in Singapore.

The morning air was very chilling, especially so when the wind is blowing. I was starting to regret not wearing warmer clothings. I had to keep my hands in the pocket to keep warm.



I slow trotted in and on the way, started seeing staff zipping around in some sort of a tractor mini car. There was a group of Caucasians and I quietly followed behind. I figured they would know where to head for.





At the mid section of the market, this was where they prepared and packed the fishes. Some of the fishes were still alive and kicking. The staff metriculously killed and packed them into neat categories, ready for packing.





At the end section, this was where they boxed up the fishes and load them onto the trucks for delivery (maybe to our suishi shop in Singapore). Air was very cold and I had to keep my hands in my pocket. There were some really big Tuna fish here. Couldn't resist the opportunity to take a pic.





I walked around and proceeded to check out the small row of shop houses. This was where you could get yourself a super fresh suishi meal. Some shops were empty but some shops were fully packed. There was 2 shops side by side and interestingly, each of them had this message "Please don't queue in front of the next door". I tried waiting behind some people for one of the shops but figured that I don't want to wait indeterminately. Decided instead to return back to the hotel for a "free" buffet breakfast instead.

After breakfast, I was picked up by a wry elderly japanese man, who had met 1 American too many. He had this habit of saying "you know, you know". He hushed me into a taxi with a Cacausian couple. I was driven to Daichi hotel something something to meet up with the tour group. The group was formed mainly of Ang Mohs with the exception of another Japanese. She had this peculiar habit of writing down notes whatever the guide said. I jokingly asked if she was a student. She said no, but her English didn't seem good enough for us to converse further.

Our guide was a short and stout man, who surprisingly, had a very good sense of humor. He would say something very seriously, and then it would turn out to be a joke. Some quips about politics, Russian embassy, gozilla, earthquakes etc.. He told us his name, which was unusual, even for a Japanese. He just said to call him Ricky, as in Ricky Martin.





Our first stop was Tokyo Tower. Now, this is the Tower of many a Gozilla TV shows. It was an effiel tower look alike, and I was told that this is the highest structure in Japan. Easy to remember the height, 333 metres. Sure enough, from the observation deck, we could have a very good bird eye view of the whole of tokyo.



From a certain direction, and on a very clear day, you could see Mt Fuji. But on this day, it was quite hazy, couldn't see any mountain, famous or not. Here, I used the badge making machine to personalize a "hello kitty" coin for D.











From tokyo tower, we moved on to Meiji Shrine. Meiji Shrine is a Shinto shrine. Shintoism is one of the two major religion in Japan. Buddhism is the other. Shrine was very scenic, and had this majestic tori gates made of ?cypress? wood. Pass this gate, you were supposed to have entered another spiritual zone. We chanced upon a wedding on that day. Quite unusal, said the guide. We learnt how to donate money and make a wish (2 bows and 2 claps and another long bow). At one end of the shrine, there was a Shinto priest, sitting still like a statue. At first, I thot it was a waxed figure and wanted to pinch his nose to see if he was for real :)





Thereafter, on the bus, we passed by some important political buildings in Japan on the way to the Imperial palace east garden. The imperial palace housed the imperial family and this east wing is the only place that was open to public. The garden was very nice, very zen, with many a cherry blossoms. Especially so, since the cherry blossoms were in bloom.



Next stop was to have lunch at Ginza district. Ginza is the equivalent of our Orchard Road. I didn't opt to have the lunch included and I went about in Ginza looking for my meal. I went into this little shop selling rice bowls (kind of like yashinoya). They had this system here. To get your food, you first had to go a vending machine, select what you wanted to eat, pay up and get a ticket. Pass this ticket to the girl and your food would be served shortly. This system seemed very popular in Japan.



After lunch, the tour group met up again to board the bus. Some of the people had left as they only gotten the morning tour. Tour guide was changed to a lady by the name of Kyoto. She was not as good as Ricky, but she was very sincere. Very smiley.
Our first stop for the afternoon was to visit a pearl factory. Obviously an arrangement to make us buy something. But some useful info here. Culturing of pearls was invented/discovered by a Japanese man. He told us how pearls were formed, the process itself would take 2-3 years. Wow. He cut up an oyster(from 2-3 years ago) to extract a pearls. "Oh, it was a very good one", he said. I suspected that he say that all the time. We drew lots, and one of us got the pearl as a free gift. Thereafter was to browse the shop to encourage us to buy. But, OMG, the pearls were at a staggering prices...I think it was at least over a thousand dollars to get a pearl necklace. More expensive than diamonds?



From there, we headed to the habour to have our river cruise. The weather now was very chilly. I was only wearing 2 t-shirts and it started to get very cold for me. It was so cold that my nose would hurt from the breathing.



While waiting, I spotted a very futuristic looking boat. (see pic)





I huddled onto the ferry inside the boat itself. Lots of people. I had thought of sitting on the open deck, but I would surely have frozen myself to death if I had done that. There were lots of seagulls around the boat. Very nice feeling to have them flying around you in a frenzy. During the trip, I noted that the water in Japan are all very clean. You hardly would find any rubbish in the water, quite unlike our singapore rivers. People here have this culture of co-existence with nature. You don't find inconsiderate people throwing rubbish anyhow.



During the boat ride, I also spotted some make shift tentage along the edge of the river. Were they the homeless people that you read about in Japan?



We alighted from the boat at a place called Asakusa. From there, it was a short walk thru an amazing streets of souvenior shops. But unfortunately, we couldn't slow down to buy anything. The guide was moving very fast ahead, and we had to keep up. She had this flag of the waving hand cat and luckily it was easy to spot in the growing crowd. There were lots of people today, partly due to the Hanami festival. Hanami is the celebration of cherry blossoms blooming. People would gather under the tree to admire and drink. To do that, they had to reserve the spot at parks and places.
We were brought on a tour of the temple grounds`.





I didn't really follow, just busied myself with taking pictures and all. At one place, a kind old japanese lady offered to help take my picture. She spoke to me in Japanese but I didn't understand. After some signing with her hands, I thanked her. The pic in front of the gate was taken by her.

From Asakusa, we gathered up for a quick drive thru to some popular streets (selling kitchen furnishing, restaurant supplies, wax fruits etc..) and Ueno, where she said you could find reasonable priced things here. And ending at Akihabara. I opted to alight here to depart from the tour.





Akihabara, if you don't know, is the famed district for electronic goods. (like our Sim Lim square). I walked around abit. But it became obvious that I would need a full day to have a good look. I was more concerned with getting to Shibuya to find Sansui (the tackle shop).





It was already 6pm and I had limited time left. I quickly figured out how to take the JR line to get to Shibuya. It costed me 190 yen, and it took about 45 minutes ride itself. Quite far indeed. However, I managed to get there and tracked down Meiji road. On the first day, I didn't know the exact address. Now I do, and I walked down the street and to my delight, found the shop. No wonder no one knows about it. It wasn't very prominent and it was only 2 story high. Only a fishing enthusiast would know.

I spent a bit of time there, but I found that all the things were very expensive. We definitely get a better deal in Singapore. I ended up picking up 2 lures which I have not seen before here and 3 packs of berkley gulp as sort of a souvenior. That alone costed me 53,000 yen. About 70-80 dollars. *VERY ex*



It was already about 7+ and I had to do some shopping for people back home. I walked around and ended up in this place called LOFT. It was kind of like an IKEA and novelty shop mixed together. Altogether, 7 stories high. I picked up some stuff here and quickly filled up the shopping bag. I had gotten past the pain of looking at the prices...just take and sign only. But on reflection, it was not cheap at all. My end month statement for credit card is sure going to hurt like hell. I would probably have to "hari kiri" myself.



I stayed on until they closed at about 8.30pm. From there, I realized that I hadn't gotten dinner. However, the whole shibuya district seemed to be winding down. Stalls started closing. I took the metro back to the hotel and alighted a stop further to do some walking. I saw this Curry house that looked interesting. A change from all the sushi and rice bowls that I had been taking. So, went it to try and not bad at all. It was very nice. At 600 yen, that was about $10 for a plate of curry rice.

Went back to the hotel, I decided to check on my airport bus ticket. However, for some reason, the reception girl gave me a suspicious (yet artifically polite) look and said that they only sell the ticket upon check out. So far, all the japanese I had met were very nice and sincere people. This particular receptionist changed all that. She was professional in her conduct, but I could sense that she was pushing me away. She said to speak to the bell captain, as if it was not her dept. That made me see another side of Japs. They regularly mumbled some standard "polite" phrases, sometimes out of habit. Few times, I was in a shop and it was obvious that I don't understand a single word they are saying, they would still continue to say .....something something emas....out of the force of habit. Even in the departmental stores, the moment you walked past, they would mumble *something*. Like some kind of customer detector. By now, I had acquired this slight habit of smiling and bowing to them.