Tokyo Day 4

My last day in Tokyo started early with me heading over to the Tsukiji fish market. The market itself was nothing special (but I should say that regular folks aren't actually aloud into the cool auction part of the market anymore). My main goal for going to this place was to get a nice fresh sushi meal…in the morning. So after walking around for a bit, I found a pretty unsuspecting place that seemed to be pretty popular. I found a seat, got a menu and started at it. For those of you who might only be familiar with sushi in the USA, when I say sushi I am referring to Nigiri Sushi which basically consists of raw fish on top of rice (in the US, Maki Rolls which are rolled together with fish and other ingredients like veggies and other stuff, are much more popular then Nigiri sushi). The first thing that I noticed (and loved) was that the rice was still warm when I took my first bite, usually the rice has cooled completely, but this really added to the intricacy of the sushi by having the cold raw fish combined with the warm and flavourful rice. To be honest I wasn't completely blown away by how good the sushi was, but it is still some of the best I have ever had. Actually there was two pieces that I had that they used a small blow torch to quickly broil the tuna (like 5 seconds) before serving it…this was absolutely one of the best tasting fish related dishes I have ever had…I think I could go to Tokyo and sit down and have this every single meal it was that good.

After getting my fill for breakfast, I headed to the Asakusa areas to see the Sensoji temple. Nothing too special here, but it is a neat thing to see. I then headed over to the Shibuya area which is well known for attracting an interesting crowd of young'ens on the weekends. I walked up through Shibuya and through Yoyogi Park so that I could go see the Meiji Shrine. The best part of the Shrine was the fact that there were some wedding ceremonies going on, so it was neat to see how the traditional wedding ceremonies went. After I back to Yoyogi park where the young folk had started gathering. There were people dancing (some to music, others…well I don't know what they were dancing to), acting out plays, playing instruments, people tapping broomsticks on the ground trying to make some kind of beat and then just a bunch of youths just sitting around hanging out. The one thing I really liked about this walk was you were able to get to see the diversity of the styles that people (of all ages) choose in Tokyo.

After soaking in all the fun of people watching, I headed back to my hotel to pick up my bags and head to the airport. I made one final stop in Ueno at an outside market that had caught my eye before getting on the train to the airport. I was very glad I took a walk through this thing, again, I am not a shopper so I didn't buy anything of worth, but I did find a Turkish Doner Kebab place. So I thought, after eating all this Japanese food…why not have a Doner Kebab. Technically I have only had one once in my life, but I could literally live off this stuff (which is good that I don't live in Europe because supposedly they are all over the place). I ordered one with chicken and I hate to say it, but it was by far the best thing I ate during my time in Tokyo. The Japanese food was good (the best I have ever had), but this Kebab has all the necessities that I love in food, it's got juicy meat, vegetables, great sauce (it was awesome), and the bread that was wrapped around it was perfect. So I was extremely glad to have taking this walk and will go to the place 100 out of 100 times if I ever go back to Tokyo. All in all a great ending to a great trip.