Teresa's Birthday Adventure Part III: Tsukiji

Now it was time for Tsukiji and we were all more than ready for it.

A little information about Tsukiji. Tsukiji is supposed to be the biggest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world, and according to some guy on Wikipedia, one of the biggest wholesale food markets in general. One of our monitors was told that we went and she confessed to never having been. So I think it's more of a tourist attraction rather than something many native Japanese do if they don't have to. And the Japanese that would go to Tsukiji would be those there to buy or sell fish.

As soon as we got off the train we were presented with that lovely image you see at the top of the post, of a large fish on a building. I think that really sums up what Tsukiji is all about: fish, fish and more fish.

The closer we got to the actual market the more foreigners we saw. At one point all of them were wearing Wellies. I looked down at my flat shoes, with their miniscule holes in them, then turned to Jen.



Me: Uh oh, do you see all of those people in Wellies. I hope we're not going to get our feet wet.
Jen: (Looks down at her own flats) Not a good sign.
Me: You know what I only have three rules for this excursion. First, rule 1, I cannot get fish water on my feet. Rule 2, I cannot get fish water on my feet. Rule 3 —
Jen: See rules 1 and 2 above.
Me: Exactly, I cannot get fish water on my feet.

[Later...]

Jen: You know we only had three simple rules.
Me: And we broke every single one of them - and they were all the same!

But even though we got our feet wet, both metaphorically and literally, Tsukiji was really fantastic. We got to see so many interesting things and play human Frogger with the little vehicles that carried the fish other produce. We also saw them carting and cutting huge tuna. It was truly amazing. One guy even showed me a sea pineapple. I immediately thought Spongebob Squarepants; I always thought they made up that pineapple house stuff, but now I know he really could live in a pineapple under the sea!

After an hour or so of making our way through Tsukiji we all decided to head back home. It would seem, however, that the Japanese Rail Line had different plans for us. We made it back to Yotsuya, where our university is, but we waited forever for the train to Shinjuku. Indeed, as we waited on our platform several Japanese came and left us standing/lying/sitting there. The announcer kept saying things but never once did he mention that the train was not running from this platform. At the platform across from us, a train was stopped and had been sitting there with people on it for quite sometime. Fatigue had worn us all down at this point and we were irritated that our train never arrived. Finally we went upstairs to take another line and discovered that all trains were stopped from that platform. Why, oh why didn't they just say that!?

So, we had to take the subway line to Shinjuku and from there we were able to take our normal route home. By the time we got back to the DK House it was 8:30, we were all more than exhausted and ready for a long day's sleep. All in all it was an interesting experience. Will we ever do it again? Eh, possibly, and if we do, we'll definitely have a plan.