Tsukiji and sightseeing

Orientation Day 8:

After bringing my bags downstairs I went back up to the room to sleep until 11:30. We were leaving the hotel at 12. We met to go to Tsukiji for lunch today! Good ole Tsukiji! For those of you in my cultural anthro class this summer, we

had to read an entire book on Tsukiji! I didn’t get to go in the morning to see the buying scene, but we went there for some ono grindz!

Lunch was awesome! Thank goodness I acquired a taste for sashimi before I came to Japan! (Growing up I did not like raw fish)... Today I ate a sashimi donburi, bowl. It was awesome! What was in my rice bowl was slices of sake (salmon), maguro (tuna), hamachi (yellowtail) and tako (octopus), and of course tamago (egg) on a huge portion of rice. With it came soup with crab legs in it!!! The teshyoku was all for the price of about $9-$10!! For fresh fresh seafood?! pure awesomeness.

After a wonderful lunch we took the denshya to Odaiba in Tokyo. What a beautiful location right next to the water! We got to see the famous Rainbow Bridge. Our train ride had a wonderful view of the water below us and the city. It had a more laid back feel with people playing beach volleyball, walking their dogs on the boardwalk area, and people eating ice cream and checking out the shops. We walked around for a bit, passed by stores and watched a monkey side show. Yes a monkey that entertains by doing handstands and the such. The place is such an interesting combination of Japanese cute things, clothing shops, a marine museum and a statue of liberty? --Yeah they got a mini one from France. It is WAY smaller than NYC's one. ha oh and there is a horror place where you can watch scary things or something. Basically be frightened. :O

For a mid day snack I treated myself to a machya (green tea) ice cream wrapped in a crepe. The crepe acts like the usual cone. It was good! :) After checking out the place, we then went on a Tokyo at night boat ride to Asakusa. I like the mix of old and new Japan that Asakusa has. Quite interesting. We had dinner in the area at a small house restaurant serving okonomiyaki. This is a Japanese pankcake that you cook yourself on the hot plate on the table. It is filled with cabbage, meat of choice, onions, a dough mix and an egg. The ingredients are mixed together, cooked and then sprinkled with nori and fish flakes. I wasn’t that hungry after our feasting today, but I tried some anyway and it was delicious!