feb-12

After waking up early I had a nice view out my corner window of parts of the ginza area, including a huge lit up multi story apple store symbol!

As I had ordered breakfasts with my room I headed down to a nice "first meal" breakfast buffet prior to starting my day.

7am call!

A yummy section of various marinated and pickled items.

I really liked the avocado and tofu with a tangy vinegary pickled favor to it

(pickled and creamy at the same time).   The thinly sliced cucumber was

also seasoned very nicely.    The other pickled items were great too!

There were some nice bread items, including a little "apple pie/tart"

item which was probably slightly deep fried, but tasted wonderful:

Some great salad bar selections, with a nice sesame vinaigrette dressing

that I added on top

The slightly less healthy section-- nice mushroom  infused rice

and some very "wet" scrambled eggs (tasted great).   Beyond that

some meat products that I skipped.

Soe fruits and toppings:

some german potatoes, ham and (in the back) a very nice

set of marinated eggplant slices.

A selection of beverages:

And a VERY NICE warm corn soup:

I ate my fill (to a "no longer starving" level and came back to the room to enter this in.

Next, I'm headed out -- probably walking over to the fish market and the sushi/sashimi places outside!

more later...

(later!)

So I left the hotel and walked towards the Tsukiji fish market.   Along the way I stopped at a 7-11 type mart 

(they have ATM's all over Japan) and got some additional Yen.

As I approached the fish market there was a little park which had a nice sign -- not really the market street 

itself but really close and somewhat cool-- here it is:

So as I reached the outskirts of the market street I zig-zagged through to see many vendors selling fish, 

restaurants selling food, any everything in between.   This was not the actual wholesale part of the market

(I got there late for that and to me that is amazing but less "interesting" as I can't participate [or EAT] it directly).

I'll post some shots of a few of these spots on my way back, but going I want to check it all out and find

somewhere to eat my "second breakfast".   

After getting right up to the edge of the wholesale market I found a number of small sushi restaurants with lines

in the front of them.   I picked one with a 'reasonable' sized line (there with some with lines that looked as if it would take

an hour to get in, so I picked one that ended up only being about a 10-15 minute wait).   Here's the front of the shop -- you can

see some pictures of some of the set meals posted along the top of the wall:

While waiting I ended up meeting a nice woman and her daughter who were visiting from 

Taiwan.   We had a nice chat and ended up sharing a table when we got to the front of the line.

Iris is a very nice mother -- she is vegetarian and this sushi was a treat for her daughter who did

a fabulous job of polishing off a very respectable nigiri set which came with a very nice big piece of eel

as well as a nice handroll.   Here's a picture of that great meal below:

Meanwhile Iris also documented the treat -- here it is from a different angle:

My choice was the eel and ahi over rice bowl:

The restaurant also provided a wonderful Ebi miso soup with "real" Ebi (shrimp) head in it:

After lunch Iris was kind enough to take a picture of me a block away next to 

some other stands.  Here's a picture of me as well as picture of a cool

stand that was selling little "pocket desserts" (desserts with sweet azuki 

bean in them that were crafted to look like cool things).   I bought one that looked 

like a flower petal (the pink one above the green dragon head at the bottom).

Yum!!!!

We parted ways after exchanging email addresses and I took a few pictures

over the next 30-45 minutes as I walked around various other small stands

in the area.  Here are a few of them -- 

grilled scallops, eel, squid, and other stuff:

Grilled Ahi on a stick:

Grilled shellfish on the half shell:

So I walked past one of the other small restaurant vendors who 

had a nice but aggressive "barker" working outside and he

managed to lure me in for ANOTHER breakfast (I'm not sure

which one I'm up to).    

I just could not say NO to another eel bowl with a little

tamago on the side.  They even threw in nice tea and

a free miso soup:

After eating that I was full, but couldn't stop myself from 

grabbing the other nearby grilling vendors "squid on a stick"I ended up getting a grilled squid on the stick to go:

Okay!   Enough food (even for me!) for a while.   I needed a break, but what to do?

Turns out that about two blocks from my hotel is the Kabuki Theater, and they have 

mini single act/showing kabuki performances that you can stand in line for.   I was about

20 minutes out from the first showing of the day, so for 1000 Yen (under $10) I stood in line

and "rested" (digested) and went up to the nosebleed section (4th floor) where such "single show" 

tickets place you.    I also paid about $4 to rent an english audio device to let me listen in on an 

english interpretation of the action.    Sadly its not legal to record anything (though I did like

everyone else take a picture before the show started of the theater insides).   It was worth the time

as it was a unique experience and, even from the heights of the nose bleed section of the 4th floor

balcony you could really see the actors in their costumes and their "motions" playing out the action of the

kabuki play below.   Very colorful and fun!

After that I tried to go back to my hotel, but they were literally in the 

middle of cleaning my room!   So I took a walk around more of the Ginza

area.   It was actually lunch time (what, was I hungry again?) but I didn't

feel like more protein so I found a cafe/cake shop and had a light lunch of

strawberry cream cake with a pastry shell and chocolate cake with whipped cream

along with a nice jasmine tea:

After that little snack I found a department store and checked it out.

The basements of most Japanese department stores is where they have

amazing food items.   I guess you're not supposed to take pictures (someone

there told me no after a while) but here's what I took before I was told not to:

d

Finally I walked back to my hotel.   On the way there I saw a watch shop 

(do people really just have watch shops anymore?  I guess so!)  with this really cool

figure in the window, so I had to take the picture.   I think he is saying

"you NEED a watch!"

There was also one other cool "guy in the street" (which was really earlier near the

market, but I might as well add him in here):

I went back to the hotel and slept like a rock!    So much so that I didn't wake up until about 8pm and then was not even hungry!

So, sadly, I skipped dinner!!! :-(   Just means I'll have to make it up tomorrow morning.