Today we walked so much I thought my legs were going to fall off! This morning we went to the Tsukiji fish markets which various people had told me were worth checking out. A guidebook I'd read said there wasn't much point getting there before 9am, unless you were going to the fish auctions which happen between 4 and 6amish and they only let 140 tourists in. I think the guidebook gave us a bumsteer, cause by the time we got there sometime after 9am a lot of the market-holders were packing up their produce for the day (I doubt I would have been able to wake up any earlier, though!). I felt quite awkward walking through the markets. Clearly it's not set up for tourists and we spent the whole time just trying to get out of the way of various people working there, trucks and machines. The whole place is very fish-stinky, as you woud expect, with lots of different types of fish and other seafood on display and plenty of opportunities for your feet to get splashed with smelly fish juices, errrrgh. This is the 'inner market' and the 'outer market' which circles around the fish area is filled with fruit and vegies, and various kitchen utensils for sale. There are also lots of sushi restaurants. It was interesting enough to see the fresh seafood, etc. before it makes its way into restaurants, but I couldn't help but feel it is not a good place for tourists/travellers to go as it probably just annoys the people that work there.
After this we went to the Yebisu Beer Museum at Ebisu, which was not particularly exciting but the good news is that they serve beer before 12pm. Oh, and they had a giant can of beer made out of lots of little cans of beers which was pretty nifty. We gave ourselves a self-guided tour of the Museum, because the tour given by their 'Yebisu experts' was only given in Japanese (saved ourselves 1000yen - so thrifty!) and then went and enjoyed some Yebisu beers in their tasting area. Unfortunately the beer experts weren't very good at pouring the beers (far too much head) but at least the beer was nice. It was a funny system they had there; you had to pay your money into a machine which then spat out a special Yebisu coin which you then had to give to the beer experts to get your beer. Not sure why the machine was needed at all; maybe the beer experts couldn't work out how to give change. We then bought an obligatory beer stein to add to our growing collection, and I got a commemorative stamp (because I like stamping things, even though Chris pays me out for trying to get the commemorative stamp at all the tourist attractions).
At this point we decided to try to do a suggested itinerary on the Wiki-travel website for Tokyo. We'd already done step 1 - the fish markets. There were loads of other things to do so we had to get started asap. We took ourselves off to the Meiji Shrine located in a forest of tall cedar trees. This was a fine looking shrine and we had a nice wander about and a sit down in the peaceful ambience. There was a thing that you could hang little prayers on, if you like that sort of thing, and it was nice to read what people were asking for. There were only a few in English, and most were asking for their sick rellies to get better, but one was asking for a World Cup win for their country. We left just before several enormous busloads of tourists arrived and ruined the serenity - phew.
More train riding and off we went to Shibuya for some shopping and people-watching. We had a stroll down Harajuku, which is likened to the Champs-Elysees in Paris, due to its wide streets and exorbitantly priced shops. Disappointingly, but unsurprisingly, Chris woudn't let me stop to check out the shops here. Then onto Takeshita Dora, which is a narrow little street with loads of cutesy shops aimed at the teen girl market, i.e. Hello Kitty, Miffy, other cartoon characters and all things pink (i.e. my type of shopping!) It wasn't long before we happened upon Chocolate Dog, a shop with all manner of things for spoiling your dog and dressing them up for public humiliation - how convenient! Clearly our trip to Japan would not have been complete without the purchase of a cute outfit for Kimba, so we bought a little pink kimono so she will be the belle of the ball. She got off lightly, really - there were plenty of other things that caught my eye. For example, a little bumblebee outfit! I think Chris really enjoyed looking for outfits for our baby, even though he pretended he didn't. Whilst I could have spent hours cruising these shops, clearly that wasn't going to happen so off we went for lunch at La Pausa, which is the Japanese take on italian cuisine. Interesting. The pizza we had with prawns and a mayonnaise type sauce was tastier than it sounds, but I won't be rushing back. Wandering back onto one of the main streets of Shibuya, we had dessert at one of the sidewalk shops. This was a yummy sundae-style concotion called something like a honey bee chocolate cream, which consisted of little honeypuff-like, deep fried balls, icecream, cream and chocolate. Mmmmmm. They do do good sweets here :) We walked down the street some more to get some Starbucks' coffees and sit in their primely-located coffee shop looking out over Hachiko, the world's busiest pedestrian crossing. The crossing looked pretty darn busy, but it is hard to believe it is the world's busiest. How is that even worked out?!
By this point we were both feeling pretty exhausted, but the tour had to go on. So more train navigating, and soon we were boarding the private railway train journeying to Odaiba island. This train was really cool; it reminded me of a monorail because it doesn't have a driver and one section of the track, on the lead-up to Odaiba, is a massive loop. We sat right at the front for the best view of the approaching track and landscape. The Rainbow Bridge on the leadup to Odaiba is apparently the longest suspension bridge in the world. On arrival we headed straight to the Decks beach boardwalk where we stopped for some draft beers overlooking a replica of the Statue of Liberty (just what you would expect in Japan). Then we checked out the other weird but wonderful architecture of the island - including Tokyo Sight (which is a skyscraper with enormous inverted pyramids on it - hard to explain but basically it is like looking at the Egypt Pyramids upside down, on a slightly smaller scale), and the Fuji TV building (which is like two towers with a giant ball in the middle). Then we walked for what seemed like ages to get to a shopping centre called Venus Fort, which inside has a ceiling which has different sky settings. When we were in there, the sky was blue and cloudy. We were a little disappointed that the "sky" didn't change whilst we were there. Apparently the gods (owners) of the Venus Fort will change it to storm clouds and rain and then back again to blue skies within minutes, just for fun. I managed to scrape in a superquick half hour of shopping whilst Chris checked out the Toyota showroom conveniently located right next door. I'm pretty sure that Toyota/Venus Fort joined forces on this one, figuring that the ladies need time to shop and meanwhile their husband/children can be entertained with the toys next door. I understand Chris had fun going for a ride in a test vehicle that drove itself, but when I met up with him again he still insisted on showing me through the showroom and some of the other gadgets on offer (soccer balls that suspend in mid air; soda bottles that create a whirlwind effect inside them when you shake them, and other strange things that I'm not too sure what the relevance was to Toyota, but who cares really if it keeps the big and small kids happy).
We travelled back on the monorail/train, again securing front-row seats and this time the outlook was even prettier with the lights on the bridge and island having just been lit up for the evening. We travelled to Roppongi, which is the nightlife area where supposedly all the ex-pats gather. We didn't really get into the nightlife, however, as we were both so tired by this time it was all we could do just to quickly have dinner (Japanese curry, Indian-style and more beers) and travel back to our hotel in Shinjuku. Doing the suggested itinerary was a marathon effort to get to this point - it is hard to believe that the itinerary said we should continue partying at Roppongi until 5am, ready to face the fish markets again. We are obviously getting old, but we gave it our best shot!
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