Dear Readers,
When Andrea was planning the itinery, she said, “We’ll wake up at 7am to go see the fish market.”
….
WHAT!!! A fish market!! 7am! and when I said this to Denise, “Can you imagine, 7am??” I will always remember her response, “My dear, not 7am, FOUR THIRRTY!!!”
*faints*
So on Denise’s expert advice, I ended up being the more ridiculous of us two, and told Andrea that we had to head out at 6am.
The journey getting to the fish market itself was quite amazing. Andrea and I were superstars. On our own bought what we thought were 2 day Tokyo underground passes – Pasmo – only to realise that it is a simple top up card, similar to HK’s Octopus card, Singapore’s EZ Link and London’s Oyster card. (Fabulous!)
So we reached Shinjuku Station (a 5 minute walk from our hotel) at 630-ish, and it took us roughly 25 minutes to find the proper Shinjuku station to go to Tsukiji. That sentence probably seems like it makes no sense. But in Tokyo, anything is possible. It makes sense.
Because, say there is one station, and this station is an interchanging station, the Tokyo subway system doesn’t provide easy interchanges. You as the commuter have to travel up down and around a pocket full of posies. Oh wait to illustrate, check this out Tokyo Underground Transit Map
So at our station Shinjuku, Andrea and I needed to go on the Marunouchi line but our hotel was close to the Oedo line. Oh wait, as I type this out, I finally get it. The big font letters like, SHINJUKU is the area, so different lines are placed in different parts of that area, and if by chance you can interchange in the same location then you are lucky! Phew! I wish I made that revelation earlier.
To say it simply – the Tokyo Subway is very confusing.
So it was bright early in the morning, Andrea was enthusiastic about talking to people and asking for directions. With her blue small phrasebook, she asked “Marunouchi line (she had the word for it, i cant recall now) doko desku?” The station manager was nice, pointed us towards the North, we walked there and up a flight of stairs, realised we were walking back the hotel way, U-turned walked down the same flight of stairs, asked another Uncle and he directed us West, we walked straight, didn’t work out, then we asked a tourist couple, who were very nice, told us it was out of the Oedo station and a 5 minute walk. Unclear instructions, didn’t know where to go, then we asked another man, and this man was SO SWEET, he walked us down a small flight of stairs and pointed the path.
All in all, like I said, it took us 30 minutes to get from Shinjuku station to Shinjuku station. And within 15 minutes we were at Tsukiji Fish Market.
What can I say. It was a fish market, there were fish, and lorries and trolleys and wet floors. Coming from Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore, I can openly say, I don’t see the big deal about it. Maybe this is similar to when my Singapore friends come and they say they must go to BIG C (a low grade low cost grocery store in Thailand) I have such a laugh when I look back at our fish market photos. We are taking photos of dead fish, posing with dead fish, its quite hilarious. I just can’t believe it is an actual tourist attraction.
Some points on Tsukiji Market,
1. the vendors are conducting their business, so they must feel a bit
(-.-) <-thats a face
when we tourist come over to snap photos of their livelihood, especially when they don’t profit from it. You don’t see any of us buying 100grams of fresh octopus.
2. The drivers of the trolleys, and the trucks (basically motorised equipment) are either really angry at us tourist and want to run us down, – or they drive like that usually. You have to imagine a lane the width of a king size bed (1.5 meters?) and a trolley zooming by at 20 – 30km/h. Craziness!! All you here is Zooommrr! or Vrrooomr! Easily your foot could be rolled over.
3. The fish market doesn’t have a disgusting fish stench, its quite pleasant actually. Props.
We met these 2 HK girls, who were also scared to death about the trolleys, and when walking to the sushi restaurant, they were standing behind crates not knowing if it was safe to go forward. I was scared too! Trucks driving by, and forklifts driving at 30km/h.
But we survived and made it to Sushi Dae for fresh Sushi!
That’s another entry all together,
Stacy
For photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/skmkh2002/FabulousJapan2008
