Sharp Rubber Duck

Greetings from the Land of the Rising Sun

A pleasant, vicarious trip to a former enemy.............

John M, July 10 , 2007

I'm just finishing my first week in Japan and am finally settling into a vacation mode. I had an uneventful trip over and arrived with no problems. My seatmate was a guy from Kansas City who had spent much of the 90`s as a dancer for MC Hammer and has been working in Tokyo for the last few years as a hip hop dance instructor. Nothing like having your preconceived notions of a country shattered before you set foot on the ground,

Due to the time difference, I was wide awake by 5AM my first morning here, so I decided to jump head first into the culture and set out for the Tsukiji Fish Market. The Japanese probably consume more fish per capita than any other nation, except maybe for some Pacific Islanders who have no other food available. Japan is also a densely populated country. So when they set up a fish market, it is no small affair.

Tsukiji probably covers a 5-7 square block area. About 1/4 of that area is devoted to a fish auction. They auction off thousands, if not tens of thousands of tuna a day. They literally scoop them up in big front loaders to move them around.

The remainder of the market is set up for wholesalers who mostly sell to other fish dealers, markets and restaurants, but also sell to the public. I've never seen so many fish or so many different types of fish in my life. They had fish that other fish probably didn't know existed.

Thanks to jet lag, Tsukiji has also become a major tourist attraction. It's on most tourist's arrival day list of things to do. However, it is also ultimately and primarily a warehouse, full of forklifts, motorized carts, scooters and trucks whipping through impossibly narrow aisles at breakneck speed while laden with so much fish that quick braking is a quaint notion. And, of course, since the Japanese have followed the British lead and drive on the wrong side of the road, all of this traffic is coming from a direction that us tourists would not expect even if we weren't functioning on minds dulled by sleep deprivation. At one point I just sat back on a bin and watched the near misses. Great entertainment and no admission charge.

Of course, being an endless source of fresh fish and hungry laborers, Tsukiji also has a restaurant area. Like I said, the Japanese eat a lot fish and breakfast is no exception. It really is not considered to be a proper breakfast if it doesn't include fish. In the spirit of diving into the culture, I found a restaurant within my means and had some fish and rice for breakfast. The concept was a little disorienting, but it was some of the best fish I've ever had.

I�@continued the fish theme by having lunch at a conveyor belt sushi place. Aside from fish, the Japanese also love automation, so they've set up sushi restaurants where the chef puts the sushi on a plate on a conveyor belt after he has prepared it. It then circles around until someone decides it looks good and grabs it. Each plate is color coded so you can tell the price and when you are done the waitress counts out the plates and gives you a bill. It is one of the more affordable ways to have sushi here.

I had some unagi and tako sushi (more palatable ways of saying eel and octopus) and some miso soup for about 6 bucks. The miso soup was not like the miso soup I've had in the States. It was actually called Ari-miso soup. I should have asked what Ari meant. Apparently it is Japanese for "with a fish head thrown in". I could see when the waitress brought it out that there was fish in it and it looked pretty boney, but it wasn't until pulled a socket with an eyeball in it out that I figured out it was the head. I wasn't willing to delve quite that deeply into the culture, so I set the eyeball aside. The rest of it was actually pretty good though. Since I didn't find a second eyeball, I'm assuming I only got half a fish head or that it was a one eyed fish.

I was fortunate in that the cherry trees were in full bloom when I arrived. Cherry blossom season is a BIG thing here. On my first day I went to a museum at Ueno Park, a prime spot for seeing cherry blossoms. As I walked through the park, I noticed that there were areas roped off under the cherry trees. There must have been over a hundred of these areas. When I left the museum, the reason for the roped off areas became clear. Each of these areas was reserved for an after work cherry blossom party.

Even 40 degree weather, 10 mph wind and a steady drizzle did not deter these folks from their cherry blossom party. They came out dressed in there business attire (no casual Fridays here), laid down a blue plastic tarp (tatami is apparently out) and laid out makeshift tables of cardboard boxes filled with food. Of course, shoes were removed and lined up at the side of the tarp.

The final ingredient to the feast was alcohol, large amounts of alcohol. There were more ice chests full of beer than at a NASCAR event and rows of the largest sake bottles I've ever seen. There were shouts of "Kampai" (cheers), really bad singing and a drinking game that I really didn't understand except that it seemed to have the same goal as all drinking games. What better way to celebrate the rebirth of nature and fragile and fleeting nature of life as represented by the delicate cheery blossom than with a drunken feast. I think I'm going to like this place. Kampai.

John

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