![\"Tokyo](\"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Screenshot-2023-09-16-082642.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThat 20 million people is a made up number, of course.\u00a0 40 million people live in the greater Tokyo metro area, but how many of them were really between us and breakfast?<\/p>\n
A lot.<\/p>\n
We boarded a subway train with 12 cars, the platform for which was longer than a city block.\u00a0 This train runs every 5 minutes at rush hour. Nonetheless, when it\u00a0arrived<\/em> it was as densely packed as I had ever seen a subway car. Despite this, a sold twenty or so people, including us, pushed into the car via our door alone<\/em>. (This was repeating itself at all three doors on all twelve cars.) As standees, you are crushed together with everyone around you so solidly that breathing becomes restricted.\u00a0 For 40 minutes.<\/p>\n I can now say a) that I have experienced one of the great wonders of the world that is the Tokyo metro at rush hour. and b) I have no desire to ever do so again.<\/p>\n But we made it to our station alive, and started walking towards the market.\u00a0 We stopped to investigate an interesting temple, which is a strange mixture of Japanese, Indian, and Western architectural styles.<\/p>\n But we weren’t here for temples, we were here for fish.\u00a0 The Tsukiji Outer Market is a maze of little twisty passages, all alike. As always, food needs to be consumed more or less where it was purchased. We started with some absolutely ridiculously good sushi, to the point where we had already eaten half of it before we even remembered to take a picture. It was also insanely cheap.<\/p>\n At this point, we pretty much fell down in the “photography” department.\u00a0 According to my notes, we had Sushi, Squid on a Stick, Grilled Tuna Skewers, Fresh Fruit Sodas, and a Fish Burger. This was all a result of simply wandering up and down the tiny market streets and pointing at what looked good.\u00a0 The fish burger in particular was excellent, and we’d never have found the tiny shop selling them if it weren’t for watching so many YouTube videos in advance – the shop is down a tiny offshoot alley that we’d likely never even have spotted.<\/p>\n On the train, however, we realized we would be passing right by Harajuku, and decided to hop off and see if the woodblock museum that we missed on Saturday was open.\u00a0 Nope.\u00a0 Change of exhibits.\u00a0 We did, however, get a chance to walk down Takeshita street, which was merely crowded, rather than bonkers like Saturday.\u00a0 Sadly, we appear to have neglected to take any pictures, so here’s one from a previous day of a cat flipping you off.<\/p>\n OK, just one of those.<\/p>\n From here, we decided to go check out a mall called “Nakano Broadway”, which has been described as “Akihabara West.”\u00a0 From the subway, you walk down a covered shopping street to the mall entrance. The most interesting part was the consignment sections. A number of shops consisted of nothing more than rows of floor to ceiling, neon lit glass cubes. Each cube was rented by a seller who was looking to display and sell their used anime goodies.\u00a0 I don’t know how the actual sale process works, since I didn’t actually want to spend several hundred dollars on a rare Evangelion figurine.<\/p>\n After this, we decided to split up – I went to a nearby arcade to play some rhythm games, and Leigh went to look for Japanese skin care products.\u00a0 While walking to the arcade, I snapped the picture on the right.\u00a0 The one on the left is from Shimokitazawa.\u00a0 Strikingly similar composition. Shows how much imagination I have.\u00a0 At least you can’t see my finger in the left one.<\/p>\n Dinner time, and it was our last chance to visit an Ainu restaurant I had been wanting to check out.\u00a0 The Ainu people are the indigenous population of Hokkaido, Japan’s northern island.\u00a0 Like indigenous peoples everywhere else in the world, their culture has been violently suppressed for generations, and what’s been preserved is due to the dedicated efforts of the survivors.<\/p>\n My meal of wild boar and salmon broth was fantastic, and the hosts were extremely friendly.\u00a0 The restaurant’s name is Harukor Ainu Restaurant, it’s near the Shin-Okubo station on the Yamanote line (just north of Shinjuku), and if you’re in Tokyo, I strongly recommend a visit.<\/p>\n And with that, it was time to head back to our hotel and pack. Over more than two weeks, we had Japanned all the Japan we could possibly handle. Time to go home.<\/p>\n The main Tokyo fishmarket used to be in the Tsukiji neighborhood.\u00a0 If you got there at 5 AM, you could watch tuna being auctioned off, then dodge forklifts to get to amazingly fresh food stalls. A few years back, it … Continue reading <\/a>
\nThis is the Tsukiji Honganji temple, and it dates from the 1930s, replacing one that was destroyed in the Great Kanto Earthquake.\u00a0 It belongs to the same school of Buddhism as the giant wooden temple just north of the Kyoto train station, Jodo Shinsho, or “True Pure Land” Buddhism.\u00a0 It’s definitely unique among the temples we visited.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nThe case on the left side of the picture has fish of various types.\u00a0 You pick your fish, and they turn it into a fried fish sandwich while you wait.
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\nIt may look humble, but it was outstanding. The sushi was outstanding.\u00a0 The squid on a stick was outstanding.\u00a0 This guy was probably outstanding, I have no idea, we didn’t talk to him.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nOur bellies full, it was time to go elsewhere.\u00a0 Our plan was to visit the neighborhood of Shimokitazawa, which was described to us as a neighborhood with a cool, hipster vibe. “Cool” would be nice… I know I haven’t bitched about it for a few paragraphs, but it was still incredibly hot.\u00a0 Every day had a rhythm of “do stuff until we can’t face moving any more, then go find some A\/C”.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nAfter that, we did make it out to Shimokitazawa.\u00a0 As promised, it had a cool, hipsterish vibe.\u00a0 Lots of vintage shops. Lots of coffee shops. Lots of statues of Mickey Mouse, destroying a guitar.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nStill, it was a fun place to wander around.\u00a0 Very quiet, which was a nice change from the chaos of the last few days. When we needed our next AC break, we found a coffee shop with absurd ice cream sodas.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nWe weren’t really hip enough to be allowed in here, to be clear.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nThe mall itself is four BIG floors with a number of different stores. A lot of them sell watches, for some reason.\u00a0 But the biggest category is anime merchandise. Figurines upon models, upon clothing, upon books, upon figurines.\u00a0 So many figurines.<\/p>\n<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0<\/a>
\nRhythm games in Japan continue to be incredibly fun, and very good value – I played for nearly an hour for about 3 bucks.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"