Tokyo - day 5

Yep, still trying to finish up my blog posts about my Japan trip, so for those of you who've been waiting patiently, thank you :)

So on day 5, Bear and I were trying to finalize our gift buying for our friends and family and also wanted to go to the famous Tsukiji fish market. We didn't go to watch the tuna auctions early in the morning, but thought we'd still browse around in the late morning. It was very busy with all the vendors hawking their wares. Around the fish market, there were all kinds of shops from souvenirs, cell phone straps shaped like your favorite fish or sushi, tea, fruits, veggies, katsuobushi, and much more.

There were ridiculously long lines for those waiting to get into the sushi restaurants at the market. Here's one line at one place.

You really have to get there early in the morning and have sushi for breakfast if you don't want to be waiting in lines.



The crab at this stall was still as fresh can be and really moving around while the vendor put it on the scale. It was too bad Bear and I had such a big breakfast at our hotel - otherwise, we'd probably be digging into some grilled fish or some kind of seafood lunch.



I bought a t-shirt for my dad here that had all the Japanese kanji characters for various kinds of fish. I also bought some cell phone straps shaped like fish for my dad and my brother in law.





Bear came across this vendor who sold beautiful knives. He wanted to buy a knife for a good buddy of his.

They sharpen the knives only after purchase, for safety reasons.

We browsed the market a little more then decided to return to Asakusa from our previous visit to finish up our gift shopping.

This photo is of a rooftop of a shop in the area - it had a dummy burglar (or dorobo in Japanese) that is depicted in traditional sneaky thief garb, which is the headwear that is tied under the nose. I had to ask my mom why they tie it there as I didn't know why. She guessed that it was to disguise their face - makes sense to me.

You can't see it in the photo, but they also usually have a green swirly-motif furoshiki (wrapping cloth) slung over their backs that contained the stolen loot. You can see the karakusa motif here but in purple). They're always depicted with the green swirly-motif cloth and I had to ask my mom why it was that design and colour. She explained that the green cloth was the largest in size for furoshiki, hence the burglars can fit more of their loot in it. Again, duh! :)

It started to rain in the afternoon and by this time our stomach was growling, so it was time to head inside a little ramen shop for a late lunch of shoyu ramen (ramen noodles in a soy sauce soup base). Ramen is regional cuisine - each region has its own way of preparing it. For example in Kyushu, they have tonkotsu ramen (pork broth), and in Hokkaido, they are known for their miso-based broth in their ramen.

I leave you with a picture of our late lunch that day. Oh how I miss my ramen!
Our shoyu ramen had a slice of nori, narutomaki (fish cake with a swirly design), green onion, spinach, chashu pork, and menma (bamboo shoots), all typical toppings in a bowl of ramen.

Up next: saying sayonara to Tokyo and taking the bullet train to Kyoto on day 6.