Day 7: Tokyo, Japan - Fish Market, Tokyo SkyTree, and Roppongi Hills Mori Tower - October 29th, 2015
After a long bus ride back from Kyoto, I arrived in Tokyo early in the morning. With a little bit of sleep I was back on my feet ready to explore more of what Tokyo had to offer. My first stop was the Tsukiji fish market!!!
The Tsukiji fish market is a place everyone should experience when visiting Tokyo, This was a seafood lovers paradise with so much to see, eat and obviously smell. From my experience, the market is separated into about three distinct sections. The first one is the actual market where you can eat fresh made seafood or buy packaged food and cooking supplies. The second section is the highway/parking lot area where everything comes and leaves the fish market by car or truck to the thousands of restaurants in Tokyo. The third and final section is where all the raw fish comes in and is either packaged or sold right there fresh from the sea. Lets start with the first section!
Section 1: The Market
This was my first view of the market. It doesn't look like much from here but I was about to find out that this place a lot bigger then I expected!
It was like a checker board of shops with isles passing between all of them. I spent a good 45 minutes exploring this section and barely saw half of it. There were so many delicious smells, which leads me to the food!
Im going to apologize ahead of time but I dont know the names of the places I ate at here because I was blindly exploring but you could seriously eat anywhere there. The first snacks I had were from this places which everything was grilled to perfection!
First I had crispy crunchy eel! Followed by scallops on a stick with what I think is either squid or more eel. Either way they were both delicious!!!
This delicious morsel above is called Tamagoyaki which is essentially a sweet egg omelette rolled into a circle or rectangle and then cut into sections. Its usually a breakfast treat or a dessert after your meal. They had a variety of ones filled with veggies and shrimp but I chose the basic one since it was my first time. It was very tasty and sweet!
This treat was a blend of rice and fish attached to a stick and wrapped in bacon. I couldn't pass this up it looked so good!
I hit this place up near the end of my journey. Ive seen these rice triangles before in some of the anime I watch so I had to get some. They are called Onigiri and are pretty much a lightly salted rice triangle or cylinder wrapped in seaweed. Some of them have other ingredients in them, I believe mine had salted salmon in it. I say that because I just picked one that looked good since I couldn't read any of the signs or speak Japanese. It was quite delicious and a great treat on my way out with some unsweetened tea.
Section 2: Highway/Parking lot
This area was very busy and chaotic yet strangely organized.
There were sushi shops lining the outside perimeter of this section. I just picked a random one so I could enjoy some fresh sushi. I apologize again for not knowing the name but if you can read what the sign says then I'm sure you can find it. There were many other sushi spots and ones with really long lines but i wasn't going to wait for this. I picked a little establishment on the outside of this section and enjoyed a variety of awesome sushi!
Front of the sushi shop.
Inside
Say hello to my chef who prepared my sushi.
Not sure what everything is since i dont eat sushi as often but it was all very delicious and melted in my mouth. It was quite a spread of fish as you see.
After leaving the sushi shop I noticed a large warehouse and made my way toward. While walking through the busy loading areas I shot some video. Sorry for the speed of the video, I wasn't aware I was moving so quickly, I guess all the action around me had me moving at the same speed.
Section 3: The Warehouse
This place was soooooooo cool. There were small shops all over this warehouse full of every kind of fish and sea creature, all of them fresh off the boat. There were foam boxes all over the places and also a constant stream of little trucks / forklifts carrying food back and forth. There was so much to see in this warehouse so ill start by showing you some sweeping panoramas!
The hustle and bustle of this place mimicked that of some of Tokyo's busiest train stations. It was incredible to see and very exhilarating. Here is a video of the trucks flying around.
Here are a variety of images depicting the layout of the warehouse, enjoy!
Since this is the first place these fish are brought to before going to the market, they are cut up and filleted here to be sold. So while your walking you will notice that their isn't a single patch of ground around that isn't covered in water or fish blood. So dont go in here if that stuff makes you feel weird. Here is a video of a man cutting up some fish.
Dont worry I didn't forget about all the fish. The next set of images show all the different types of fish I saw as well as other sea creatures.
Overall, this place was awesome. I got to experience some amazing food and see a full fledged fish market and all of the craziness that comes with it. I will definitely be visiting this place next time I'm in Tokyo. This was probably my second favorite place I visited after the Inari Temple and Torii Gates in Kyoto.
Day 7: Tokyo, Japan - Tokyo SkyTree and Roppongi Hills Mori Tower - October 29th, 2015
My next stop was the Tokyo SkyTree. A little about the Tokyo Skytree, as of right now it is the tallest "tower" in the world, and the second largest structure in the world just behind the Burj Khalifa. It was recently finished in May of 2012 and stands at 2,080 feet tall! It is both a broadcast tower, restaurant and observation deck. Enjoy some dramatic photos of it!
There is nothing like going to the top of the highest building in any city. It was even more awesome in Tokyo because the views of the metropolis are jaw dropping. This city is enormous! To compare, New York City has about 8 million people living in the city while Tokyo has over 13 million people!
When I got off at the train station thats beneath the tower it took me a while to find my way out and to the entrance of the tower. Tokyo loves building giant malls on top of their train stations, i can't think of a single station i traveled to that didn't have one. Once I finally made it into the tower you had a choice of two lines: an express line where you pay extra to skip the line or the long line where you pay regular price. Seeing that the regular price was expensive already, i opted to wait in line. Luckily it was only like 15min followed by a very fast elevator ride to the top. Enjoy the view!
Dont look down!!! They had a little glass floor where you could look straight down the tower to the ground many feet below.
They had a 360 degree field of view. I got here around 11 and it was pretty packed so i would recommend an earlier visit for something like this. Whats incredible is that you could not see an end to the city. It went on forever! Take a look at the density of Tokyo!
After we left the Tokyo Skytree we stopped at one of our favorite snack spots we visited while in Tokyo, Manneken! They made the most delicious waffle snacks!
After some snacks we made our way to Roppongi Hill's Mori Tower. This tower also cost to visit the observatory but it was fairly cheap. You could also pay a little bit extra and you would be able to go to the rooftop. Since i had no clue when i would be back there i said why not and paid for it. The Eiffel Tower looking building in the center is called Tokyo tower and was inspired by the Eiffel Tower. The Tokyo tower is actually 60 feet taller then the Eiffel Tower. Here is my favorite image from the rooftop of the Mori tower!
There was a raised wooden walkway that went around the outside edge of the building with a helicopter pad in the middle.
This location made for a great place to photograph. There was no glass in between me so I was able to take some great night shots.
Here is a timelapse video of the streets below. Not the best lighting but it's cool to see.
Here is a closer view of the Tokyo Tower.
IN THE actual observation deck they had a wine bar, different types of art and even a film talking about the history of Tokyo. Below wAS A REALLY COOL ART PIECE I SAW WHILE ON THE OBSERVATION DECK.
NOW TOKYO HAS SOME PRETTY AWESOME AND CLEAN BATHROOMS. THE BATHROOM AT THE OBSERVATION DECK HAD THIS AWESOME REMOTE NEXT TO IT THAT YOU USE TO CONTROL THE TOILET. Enjoy!
Day 8: Tokyo, Japan - Leaving Tokyo :...(
While leaving the hotel I took a few pictures of the street outside of my hotel. It was definitely a sad day, i didn't want to leave. We had an amazing time and experienced some incredible stuff.
However, I couldn't leave Tokyo without one last meal which obviously was RAMEN!!!
Thanks to the time difference we left Tokyo at 3pm and arrived in LA at 3pm the same day, like no time had passed. By the time I made it all the way home to NYC I was exhausted. This was my first experience with really bad jet lag. I slept for like two weeks straight before i was back to normal. The photo below had a little headshot photo of Barack Obama. lol Home sweet home!
Overall, I had an amazing time! It was my first adventure outside of the U.S. and it was definitely a memory I will never forget. I will definitely be back again. However before I do that I will be traveling to some other countries first. For my first experience out of the country, Japan was a great experience. It was safe, the people were so nice, and the food was amazing. I got to experience some spiritual journeys and interact with a different culture. I would HIGHLY recommend everyone to visit Japan, you will not regret it. Thank you to everyone who read all the way through my first blog post, more adventures will be coming. Enjoy!