World Cruise - Day 60 - Mar 12 - Tokyo

I just finished writing this blog.  Two important points of note: 1) I was not able to send it Monday evening, like I normally do with my blog, since I didn’t have Internet access while in Tokyo Bay; 2) I didn’t have a pic of Mount Fuji, but Noemi Peschard was kind enough to give me this one that she took as we entered Tokyo Bay in the morning:

It is somewhat faint and difficult to see, but it can be seen above Narita Airport.

As we entered Tokyo Bay this morning, we had an escort from a local tug:

We docked at Harumi Bay with the Rainbow Bridge behind us in the bay:

Even before we got out, there was a drum band onshore playing for us:

Someone said you could see Mount Fuji as we came in, but I was on the wrong side of the ship (starboard) and by the time we were docked, this is the most we could see:

We took a walking tour with Mami (she pronounces her name “Mommy” which made it fun to call out for her in a crowd) throughout Tokyo along with Lanny and Marcia Alexander and Richard and Barbara Nolen.  We first took a bus to the fish market.  I snapped this pic of a father pinching his son’s cheek from the bus:

Although most signs are only in Japanese, these signs also had English translation.  We are on our way to Tsukiji Fish Market:

I like the sign with the big fish coming out of it:

At the fish market, there are three different markets:  Auction Market (public is not allowed), Wholesale Market (a/k/a Inner Market) and Retail Market (a/k/a Outer Market).  As we walked by the Retail Market, there are all sorts of shops down each of the side streets:

A lot of people were eating their breakfast:

This lady was making a pot of something with fish in it:

I’ve seen wasabi only as the green paste that comes with my sushi.  This is what it looks like in its raw form:

The Fish Market has over 4,000 tons of fish a day (that’s 8,000,000 pounds of fish) in 800 different varieties.  So now it’s into the Fish Market itself, the Wholesale Market where all of the fish is waiting to be sold to supermarkets, restaurants and retail stores.  Some fish were alive:

And some we think they might have been alive just a few minutes ago:

Some stuff we couldn’t quite make it out (I think these may have been sea cucumbers?):

Lots of different fish and varieties of fish:

Lots of booths with multiple containers.

Funny, we would throw away the fish head, but here it is a delicacy:

I have no idea what these are, but they look like embryonic ETs:

Look at these two closely, the eyes are way back from the front of the mouth:

Some sort of squid?

Clams, I think, but look at what is inside:

Albino octopus:

I can’t even make out what these are:

Albino squid:

The tuna is iced down onboard the ships, so it comes in partially frozen:

Then they work to filet all the fish right there in the wholesale market:

More filet of fish:

Some crabs:

More crabs, different types:

Some people were coming through and tasting the different things before buying them.  Yuck.

Look closely at what he’s doing—he’s fileting the head of the fish to get the fish cheeks, a local delicacy.

Krissie and I have had this type of vegetable, but we forget the name of it?

There is a local Shinto shrine at the fish market watching over the fish market.

Back out at the retail market, you could buy a wide variety of items, including fish and the things used to prepare fish and other dishes.

We went to a local sushi restaurant to try some very fresh fish:

This was our menu.  Krissie and I had fresh ahi sashimi and I had a salmon sushi roll:

Marcia, Lanny, Barbara and Richard at the sushi bar.

Krissie being brave with eating sashimi:

Then we took a subway on our way to our next stop.  I got this pic of Mami (our guide), Barbara, Marcia and Krissie as the subway train went buzzing by in the background.  The Japanese typically make a peace sign for photos, so we decided to do that in most of our photos today:

I took this photo onboard the subway to show what it looks like, but also so that you could see Mr. Baggy Pants with the jeans and yellowish shirt top left of the photo standing with his crotch down around his knees:

We went next to Tokyo Tower, which looks like Eiffel Tower, but is slightly taller:

Pic from top of Tokyo Tower.  Tokyo Tower used to be the tallest freestanding tower in the world, but now is #2.  So Tokyo just built the tallest, you can see it in the top right of this photo under the cloud:

Another view of Tokyo.  The city itself is about 12 million and the metro area is about 39 million.  So basically you have the population of California in one metro area.  Huge.

Another view of Tokyo.  Most of Tokyo has been built since WWII, when much of it was destroyed in bombing raids.

This was our best view of Mount Fuji.  To be clear, what you see behind the buildings is the foothills of Mount Fuji.  Mount Fuji is a conical mountain that is actually shrouded in the clouds, very similar to Mount Rainier.

One last view of Tokyo from atop Tokyo Tower:

I zoomed in on our cruise ship at Harumi pier in the distance, could only see the aft portion:

This is a local Buddhist temple just below Tokyo Tower.

There was a glass floor area to look straight down from Tokyo Tower:

This was a kids play area at the base of Tokyo Tower:

We walked by a restaurant where these ladies were standing outside:

Tokyo vending machine, where the cold beverages are indicated by a blue sign and the hot beverages are indicated by a red sign:

We took a subway north to the Asakusa area to visit the Buddhist temple and Shinto shrine there.  As we were walking over, we got a better view of Tokyo Sky Tree, the new freestanding steel tower that will be opening in May of this year:

This is Asakusa Buddhist temple.  This is the front gate or thunder gate.  The pics to follow are interesting not only for what is in the background, but also the people in the foreground (note the two young people center looking back at me in this one):

This was a popular picture spot at the entrance gate:

Between the entrance gate and the actual temple itself is a series of shops:

…selling just about everything…

…including Japanese kimonos:

We bought some of these, they are called pancakes, but really are more like donut holes in texture:

Krissie in front the main gate:

Entry to Asakusa:

This was another nearby building:

This is the actual temple itself:

Mami showed us how you select a fortune and if you get a good fortune you keep it, but if you get a bad fortune (which she got), you tie it onto the bar and leave it here (and make a sad face, which is what she is doing):

This was an incense pot.  You can see people pulling the incense toward their heads:

This is the place where one would purify ritually before entering the temple:

Mami showed us how the purification steps work:

This is the inside of the Buddhist shrine.

The shrine has a relic of some sort that is only a copy of the original relic, which no one can see (and the copy is only taken out once a year).  Mami explained that in Japan most people are a combination of Shinto and Buddhist.  Shinto worships nature and was merged in with Buddhist beliefs in the 6^th century.  She said that people come to the Buddhist shrine for sad occasions (like funerals) and to the Shinto shrine for happy occasions (like weddings and birthdays).

On our way across the street to the Shinto shrine, I saw this local lady walking her four dogs:

This is the entry to the Shinto shrine:

Krissie in front of the Shinto shrine:

Close-up of the Shinto shrine.  It was much less busy than the nearby Buddhist temple:

Mami was showing Lanny, Richard and Marcia how to approach the Shinto shrine:

This sign (per Mami) says: “Do not feed the pigeons or they will poop on your clothes”

There was a beautiful nearby Japanese garden with koi and a bridge and a cute little building:

…and a waterfall:

This guy was playing a very crude instrument with what looked like a paint scraper:

We went to a tempura restaurant for lunch.  Richard shows his technique at eating tempura:

We were all seated on low chairs and had to take off our shoes:

After we left lunch, I got this pic of a local rickshaw:

We took a cruise boat from Asakasa to Hama Rinku Garden:

One of the bridges along the way on our cruise.  The building on the right of the bridge has a sign that says “@Brain”—not sure what that means:

Cruise boat envy, very futuristic:

We walked through Hama Rinku Garden, formerly the duck hunting ground of the local shogun:

Hama Rinku Garden with Tokyo in the background:

This sign explains how the shogun used to hunt for ducks.  Mami explained, it basically goes something like this:  The shogun had trained ducks that would mix in with the wild ducks in the pond.  The shogun would enter the duck blind and tap on the wood, which would be the cue for his trained ducks to come up the waterway to be fed and the wild ducks would follow along.  When the wild ducks were in the waterway, they would make noise which would case the wild ducks to fly, at which point the shogun’s men would release their hawks to grab the ducks for the day’s catch.  In later times, the shogun’s men would use nets to catch the ducks at they attempted to fly away:

Everyone getting ready to catch the ducks as they fly away from the waterway:

The park is a blend of the old and the new:

View of the teahouse on the water with the buildings in the background.

Ducks on the pond (Mami pointed out that they are no longer hunted and now live in peace here):

Teahouse tea ceremony was taking place:

Can you see what is in these trees?  Hint: it is not bats (like we saw in Sydney):

It’s crows.  Interesting that the crows in Japan make a different “caw” sound than those in the US (sounds more like “Hawk”):

300-year-old pine tree survived several wars and the ravages of time:

There were some plum trees in the garden that were already blossoming.  Spring is coming to Tokyo:

This building lower right is apparently quite famous, although it does look rather odd:

Phantom was playing locally:

This is a clock, hard to tell from the angle, but look in the center:

Now walking toward Ginza, this is a local gambling hall.  Mami said they do some sort of pinball gambling:

Local standing sushi bar for quick Japanese businessman lunch.

View of the parliament building (the one with the slanted roof):

Budweiser is everywhere.  Krissie posing in a cutout in front of a bar:

This is the “poisonous fish” that the Japanese eat, displayed in a restaurant window:

Krissie in Ginza (the shopping district):

I went looking for a camera store to clean the sensor on my Canon Rebel EOS, which had gotten something on the sensor.  We walked into a Nikon dealer (it is pronounced “Nee kon” here) and he directed me to a different Canon location.  It ended up being the Canon Service Center.  It was already 5p and they said they wouldn’t be able to get it back to me until tomorrow, since they close at 6:30p.  I told them I would be leaving tonight and they quickly checked and said to come back at 6:30, it would be ready then.  They didn’t even charge me, since the camera is still under warranty.  Nice service, Canon!

While we were waiting for the camera to be cleaned, we went to nearby Matsuya Department Store in Ginza and Krissie was able to find Yamazaki scotch (OK, I know, it’s whiskey, since it doesn’t come from Scotland, but it tastes like scotch), that she tried a couple years ago when we were in Tokyo and wished she had purchased then:

There were a variety of things being sold at Matsuya, it felt like Harrod’s of London for the variety of things you could purchase:

Back at the ship, there was a local band playing outside when we did our sailaway:

There were also people waving handkerchiefs.  Very nice sendoff. 

We found the Japanese people to be very quiet, polite, respectful of everyone.  Mami said that there are three different types of bows in Japan:  1) the 30 degree bow, which is used for greeting friends and family members that are the same age, or other office workers at the same level; 2) the 45 percent bow, which is for elders and people in higher position at work; 3) the 90 degree bow, which is only used at the temple.  Mami referred to me as Brian-san and Krissie as Kristin-san.  She kept a notebook during the day with all of the planned routes, how much time it took and where we would be going next to keep us on schedule.  In the sushi restaurant, everyone yelled out a greeting when someone came in the front door.  Mami was a wonderful guide and we would highly recommend her to anyone visiting Tokyo.  Her full name is Mami (which is short for Mayumi) Sorimachi and her e-mail is mayumisorimachi@gmail.com.

Tomorrow is a sea day on our way to Hiroshima on Wednesday.