One day in Tokio

I'm back in Tokio. Marijn is here for the first time, as upon his arrival to Japan, he immediately took the train to Kyoto to join me there. And he has only one day in Tokio. Not much, but given the fact that after the Kyoto temples he's not very keen to visit more temples, planning the itinerary seems to be a bit easier ;-)

We decided to start our day with the Tsukiyi Fish Market - one of the World's largest fish markets, handling over two thousand tons of marine products per day. It is located in central Tokyo, just a few JR stops from our hotel, though soon it is supposed to change location.

Tsukiyi Market is composed of two parts - the inner market where the seafood wholesale business and the tuna auction take place, and the outside market full of shops and restaurants. We started visiting the market from the outside market and although we just had our breakfast, we very much wanted more food - seafood!!! All sort of fish and marine animals - raw or ready to eat such as sushi, oysters, scalopps etc. The choice was huge, though in my case - as I was pregnant- unfortunately a bit limited. I opted for scalopps (hopefully well cooked).

After a short meal we headed to the wholesale market located in a big hall and composed of hundreds of stands. We were there a bit late (11-12), and the sellers were already closing their stands. Still, we managed to see a bit and it gave us an idea how busy it was earlier this morning. Marijn had also the specialty of the Tsukiyi - fatty tuna ;-) If someone is keen to wake up early in the morning, then it's possible to observe the famous tuna auction. The number of visitors of the tuna auction is limited to 120 per day and a special permission needs to be obtained from the Osakan Fukyu Center at the Kachidoki Gate.

After leaving the wholesale market Marijn had sushi and his favorite oysters ;-)

As temples were no more our interest, I wanted to show Marijn a bit of modern Tokyo, thus we spent our afternoon and evening in Akihabara and Shibuya Crossing :-)