Tsukiji Fish Market (Tokyo)

Some of us woke up around 3:00 AM this morning to get out of the hotel by 4:00 so we could witness the daily goings-on at Tsukiji Shijo - the famous Tsukiji Fish Market! This is basically where all the world's tuna comes from, along with tons of seafood. Bidding for the gigantic bluefin tuna begins around 5:30 AM and it's over basically in a matter of minutes. Then the fish gets taken to local restaurants and/or packed onto airplanes and shipped worldwide. This goes on every single day! Didn't include shots of the actual market, but here are shots of the sushi I had for breakfast.

The Sakura platter. It cost 3600 ¥, but I had to go big, there's no telling if I will ever have the chance to have sushi this fresh ever again.

It included unagi (eel) which was cooked with a mini torch separately from the rest of the fish!

Our sushi chef (probably in an attempt to educate us) brought out a bit of the root of the Japanese horseradish, which is what wasabi is made from!

He was quite an amazing character, saying "JJANG!" punctuating his movements while preparing the sushi, and he gave an extra dollop of uni to everyone in our group. WOW.

This is our last day in Tokyo :(. Tomorrow we depart for Beijing. I feel like we didn't spend enough time in Tokyo, but I am grateful we came here anyway no matter how short our stay was. I will miss Japan.

rainy days in Tokyo

Stick-on at Harajuku street. tiiight.

A thrift store in Harajuku had this USC shirt gracing one of their piles. REPRESENT, haha.

Crocheted/knit vests, how funny.

Murakami flower pins for 726 ¥ each (OUCH!) at a museum (?) store in Roppongi Hill.

A Murakami dinosaur/monster key chain at the same store. So cute! something like 1080 ¥. I got asked very nicely not to take photos of the Murakami merchandise right after I took this photo :(

Today we hopped around looking at development malls and it was alright. The rain in Tokyo today didn't help. After "school" two of my friends and I went looking for Harajuku street and we found it, but due to the rain and maybe because it's a school day (???) none of the Harajuku kids were there - although we did pass by many fashionable peoples. I'm sad that it is expected to rain during the rest of our time in Tokyo - we are only here for one more day! Fish market tomorrow morning at 4 am, so I am going to bed now!

Yokohama

Today was a free day and we went to Yokohama solely to see the Yokohama Pier Port Terminal by FOA (Foreign Office Architects). We took the Shinkansen from Kyoto to Yokohama, which took about 2 hours and 21 minutes, then after some confusion with a transfer rail, we walked several blocks across streets, over bridges and around construction to finally arrive at our destination.

This project put FOA on the map! A few more photos ahead...

We leave tomorrow morning at 6:30 AM - last night in Kyoto - destination Tokyo!

frog style (!!!)

I wasn't planning on going too crazy with buying things, but these frog keychains are very, very difficult to resist :X.

Frogs + Japan + bright colors + amazing themes = IRRESISTIBLE.

Himeji Castle and Engyogi

Today we went to Himeji Castle and Engyogi Shrine. Himeji Castle is more of a fortress than a castle, really, super-fortified with lots of hidden places within the main tower, and at Engyogi (which is where part of The Last Samurai was filmed) we did extreme climbing on mountain roads - some of them were sloped at what seemed like 45º!!!

Himeji Castle! FORTIFIED.

Specially-formed windows - bigger and wider in the inside, tapering to a smaller aperture to the outside, so you can shoot your enemies easily with arrows but they can't shoot you!

Imperial seals at Himeji.

Statues of monks at Engyogi.

Rocks stacked on a lantern at Engyogi.

Not a very picture-heavy day today. Possible free day tomorrow - we were supposed to go to Tokyo but we are probably going to be staying in Kyoto. People losing their passports is no fun :(.

KOBE beef

We had teppanyaki Kobe beef for lunch at Misono, IN Kobe, Japan! Could this outing have been any more perfect...

See how the meat is perfectly marbled with fat? The result of steers being massaged daily with sake, and being fed on a diet of beer and grain.

The garlic that is roasted alongside the beef, mmm.

Searing. So juicy. Could I also add how elegant the cooking surface was? Stainless steel all the way across, with the heat concentrated centrally for cooking.

So much attention to detail for everything here, including the paper place mats (which I promptly greased up as I ate).

My, you look delicious. Almost done!

Finished. Medium rare, the only way to have a steak.

Afterward, our chef brought out this display for us to take photos, as he realized how avid we were about capturing this experience. When we asked him how much this block of Kobe beef would cost, he went and got a calculator, and showed that it would be 165000 ¥ (that's $1,700!!!)

I've always wanted to eat Kobe beef, not the "Kobe-style beef" they have in the U.S. And I never dreamed I'd actually have any in Kobe, so I was unbelievably excited for it. Afterward, on the bus ride home, pretty much everyone in our group food-coma-ed in a blissful, uninterrupted sleep on the 2 hour ride back to Kyoto.

A day of Ando

Today we went to see several works by Tadao Ando - the Water Temple, Awaji Yumebutai, and Rokko Housing. I really liked Awaji, though the Water Temple was cool, too.

These holes are leftover marks from the framework for the concrete pour. They are all over Ando's concrete projects.

Looking back at the entrance to the Water Temple.

Inside the Water Temple.

Awaji Yumebutai - a landscape project. I believe this area used to be a mining ground, and all that was left was a gaping hole, so Ando's project made use of the "ruined" landscape and turned it into an amazing garden-scape showcasing all the plants in Japan.

There was a wedding here, and these ladies were picking up the leftover flower petals from the ceremony.

Ando is speaking tomorrow in Osaka, so we are deviating from our itinerary to see if we can catch his lecture, wooo.

Kiyomizu-dera (The Water Temple)

Today we went to Katsura and Kiyomizu-dera. Not many (good) photos from Katsura because it was raining so much! Holding an umbrella while trying to take photos, WHILE treading on slippery stepping stones, trying not to fall into ponds is really difficult!

Kiyomizu-dera! We came here to drink water from the three fountains (spouts) - wisdom, health, and longevity, all of which pour into a pond below. I was worried about contracting "swine flu" from the ladles, but so far I'm feeling fine...

A soggy fortune, or omikuji, I found out it's called. It rained in Kyoto today, so it was damp all day, but not cold. It was great weather!

Some girls in kimonos, strolling down the street outside of Kiyomizu-dera.

We went to a sushi place with a conveyor belt! 137 ¥ for each dish, it was sooo delicious!!! FINALLY, we get to have sushi in Japan!

Today was a short day, but highly enjoyable. The slowed-down pace really let me enjoy myself more, and that resulted with a not-so-grumpy Hana. :)

orange gates, moss, handmade cameras

Today we went to five shrines (not six like I said yesterday)! The Fushimi Inari Taisha, which has hundreds of wooden orange gates, Daigo-ji, Saiho-ji, Daisen-In at Daikoku-ji, and Shisendo. My favorites today were Inari Shrine, Saiho-ji and Shisendo.

The beginning of the orange gates at Inari.

The poles of the gates were inscribed with prayers on one side, and were blank on the other. So you'd walk through in one direction and be hit with pure orange, whereas when you turn around and walk the other way you'd see all the carved prayers, also on orange.

Sweet neckerchief, dawg. These jackal statues are all over Inari, protecting the site. They are fierce.

Lichens on a tree at Saiho-ji. In order to enter Saiho-ji, visitors are required to hand-copy the sutra and listen to/participate in the chanting of sutras. This ensures that if you really want to visit this shrine, you will go through the motions, which can take up to two hours.

The guidebook said over 120 varieties of moss grow around the pond. And historically there was no moss at Saiho-ji until the grounds flooded around the Meiji period.

This was my favorite moss, it looked like a vine of sweet little hearts wrapped around the trunk of this tree :).

My shots of Shisendo were un-amazing, but this one kind of shows what it's about. Layering's key in the atmosphere of Shisendo - note the azalea bushes (round bushes closest to you) in the foreground, the Japanese maple in the middle-ground, and the grey foliage of the end of the property in the background.

The blue rubber sandals we had to wear while strolling the grounds of Shisendo.

Yes, this is a handmade medium format camera, built by a badass visitor to Shisendo. No thanks to the language barrier, all I could figure out is that he put it together himself (the body is carved wood!), and that he had done this with a medium format and a 35mm, modified to take panoramic shots. I was beyond awed, what a perfect way to end the day.

that's some really old wood...

Today we went to Todai-ji and Horyu-ji, the largest wooden structure in the world, and the oldest wooden structure in the world, respectively. Todai-ji was massive and stunning. Horyu-ji was really large, but not as impressive in my opinion.

The enormous bronze statue of Buddha that sits in Todai-ji. At the time it was built in Japan, they used up all the country's reserves of bronze, and the construction of this shrine pretty much bankrupted Japan at the time.

Monks reciting prayers before the Buddha.

Incense at the front of the temple. Visitors are allowed to burn a stick, with or without giving a donation, and are invited to cleanse themselves with the smoke before they enter.

So many schoolchildren all around every temple! All with awesome primary-colored hats. By the end of this trip I WILL have snatched up one of these hats to claim as my own...

Did I mention that deer are rampant at Todai-ji? They have carts selling cookies to feed the deer, and they are very aggressive in the presence of the cookies...

More wishes at Todai-ji!

A random occurrence - Zac Efron (sp?) and Vanessa Hudgens were at Todai-ji today. I didn't really know it was them, all I knew is that I was irritated by the loud, self-centered people with their idiotic Holga cameras and I felt insulted by their presence. Then some girl in my group said blah-blah-blah guess who's here and I put two and two together and voila! The one last annoying cherry on top is when the girl went "Baby, take a picture of me with thisss!" (of the giant Buddha statue) and I wanted to hurl. Hypocritical of me to judge, yeah.

Tomorrow is going to be a crazy day. We are going to six shrines, starting at 8:30 am! I will be POOPED by the end of the day. see you then!