Day 7 Tokyo and fish market

 

Day 7 Tokyo and the fish market

Today was the best day in Tokyo so far. We walked from the Ginza district to Tsukiji and met Raiko, our guide, outside the Hongwan-Ji temple. It was a gloriously sunny day and we visited the temple before we set off on our food tour. The tour was listed as Fish Market, but most of the time we toured the general market. It was a brilliant opportunity to try a bit of everything…grapes, teriyaki chicken (where every single part of the chicken, minus the feet, are made into BBQ skewers), loads of spices and coated dried beans, a selection of seafood, tea and some wagyu skewers to die for. We saw wasabi in its plant form, before it's ground and made into a paste. We bought some coated coffee beans as snacks but resisted the packets of crispy grasshoppers. We saw the coffee shop that John Lennon (and presumably Yoko Ono) frequented. We even visited a couple of knife shops as some in our group wanted to but some as souvenirs for families. Raiko was fantastic, steering us to places that knew her and would not only treat us royally, but gave us discounts.

After the food tasting tour we visited the actual fish market, which was interesting. I wondered where they got prawns as thick as sticks of corn sticks and oysters as big as my palm. At the end of the tour we visited a local shrine, built to give thanks for the bounty of the sea that the market thrived on. Even though the area looked like any normal street, Raiko explained that the whole area was once underwater and now built on reclaimed land. The tour lasted about two and a half hours and was worth every minute of it. We headed back into the market for another Wagyu skewer. They were soooo simple and sooo delicious!

I had learnt my lesson about keeping hydrated and made sure to keep stocked up with sips of electrolyte drink. I felt so very much better today and it let me really enjoy the program. We thought it best to work out the travel arrangements for tomorrow so Johnny checked the documents and route before we headed to the station for a dry run. We eventually found the right machine and collected our train tickets. As they did not include allocated seating, we also found the ticket office and upgraded our tickets. On the weekend the shinkansen can get very crowded.

On the way home for a rest we again found our way back to that terrific coffee shop below a Ginza shopping centre and enjoyed an iced coffee and a rest. Then it was off to the Tenshodo model railway shop just off the Ginza main street. It was certainly interesting, but Johnny had been buying a lot of locos etc online recently so there was really nothing there to interest him.

Throughout the day we had been getting the most wonderful photos and reports from Britt’s adventures with Harri. We think a tourist could cheerfully spend two weeks in just Tokyo. It’s a great city.

We finished our first week in Tokyo with a nice meal at a restaurant not 20 steps from the hotel. The Ginza Tenkuni was a beautiful place just beyond the hotel bar. We ordered tender meals that included a mixture of vegetable and seafood tempura over a bed of rice. It was served with a very tasty bowl of miso soup and some pickles. We thought this was also a good opportunity to try some sake. Kampai! But in the end, I think a beer would have been more to my taste. Dessert was vanilla ice cream floating on a bed of coffee jelly. Johnny had a bracken dumpling with black honey. It was a delightful meal with attentive service. 

We can sleep in tomorrow as checkout will not be until 11.00. Then it will be a taxi to the station and off to Kanazawa, on the Kagayaki 533 shinkansen.

Day 6 Tokyo

 

Day 6 Tokyo gallery and sushi cooking class.

The day began well with a me feeling a lot better after a night’s sleep. I had a risk averse breakfast with just fruit and toast before we set off to the Tokyo Modern Gallery. The walk to the gallery was through the tree shaded and wide streets of this fabulous city, and it was just as well as the clouds had cleared and a determined sun was bearing down on us.

We had a pit stop at City Bakery coffee shop in the lower level of a shopping centre and it was the perfect spot. There was a vast array of gorgeous little cakes absolutely designed to tempt you as you wait for the coffee order, and we showed great restraint in just sharing an Earl Grey and chocolate chip muffin.

We left the cool (cool both in temperature and in the jazz playing) of the coffee shop to take the streets through the business district and down to the environs of the Imperial Palace. We took the path along the vast moat that surrounded the compond. It was quite a long walk and the heat made the walk quite hard. We remembered that Wil recently ran these streets in the Tokyo marathon and could only marvel at his fitness and determination. I have to say that by the time we reached the gallery, I felt quite depleted.

We lined up for tickets, but the woman behind the counter took one look at us and whipped out a prepared sign that said in English that elderly visitors over 65 entered free. Win! We were pleased to see that the gallery was about the “modern” history of Japanese art without going so far as some of the contemporary stuff that just seems to take the piss. Johnny declared that his favourite was a small piece of a vase with an apple perched on it. Strange boy with strange tastes was all I could think. It was an interesting gallery over four levels, but I found myself searching for a seat in each room. I think the long walk over had drained me.

There was a lovely city skyline view from a long picture window that sat across the upper level and even though the Imperial palace was immediately in front of us, the view was hidden by a lush band of trees.

After the gallery we thought it best to go back to the hotel for a rest as we had booked for a sushi cooking class in Asakusa and we wanted to be fresh for the journey over and the session, Johnny had no problem understanding and negotiating the metro and its multiple lines and we were soon in Asakusa district. The streets were busy but the students had gone home and so the atmosphere was less claustrophobic. Tokyo has everything except street seats and so when I found a stone plinth outside the cooking school I nabbed it while Johnny went off to find me a drink from a nearby supermarket. I was a bit worried as I felt as if I was fading fast.

The cooking school was up on the higher levels and there was already a Dutch couple there when we arrived. The class was taken by a fun and exciting young duo that were very supportive and helpful. We learnt how to make both nigiri and maki. Surprisingly, they looked great, held together and tasted wonderful. Feeling increasingly better as time passed we had a chance to get to know the other couple. They were a little younger than us and had met online during covid and been together for six years, even though they both kept their own homes, her in Amsterdam and he in the countryside.

It was a lovely warm evening and wishing to avoid any peak hour crush on the metro, we took a long walk down to the river and over two bridges. The Asakusa lights lit up the water and the Tokyo Skytree put on an everchanging lightshow. We had a quick call to Gin so that we could show Charlie the river lights. It was a lovely walk and the peace of the riverside walk was the perfect place for people to decompress after a day’s work,

The metro ride home was less crowded and we were soon back in the Ginza where the luxury shops were still open and people were still shopping. We went straight to bed as Friday we had booked for an early tour of the fish market.