Tsukiji Fish Market

In central Tokyo is located the world's largest fish market, Tsukiji.

One of the most interesting things to see at Tsukiji is the morning fish auction.  The way it works is that two groups of 60 (first group enters the auction between 5:25AM to 5:50AM) and the second group goes after that.

The spots are first come first served, so Onions and I arrived around 4AM and were placed in the second group.

When your group is called you are walked into a generic looking warehouse and see this.  Here we see already sold fish marked with some sign of the buyer.

Buyers go around and inspect the fish.

Then at the appointed hour, this man rings the bell and the auction begins.  It appeared to me that fish get sold in less than a minute.

Once sold, a man comes around and marks the fish and they are dragged out of the warehouse.

Tsukiji is more than just the fish auction.  An entire economy has grown around the buying and selling of fish and all the items that go with it.  Here's a man using a blade saw to cut frozen fish.

Inside this building is the intermediate wholesalers area.  Off limits until later in the morning.

And this is....fresh wasabi!

A mountain of styrofoam.

Within the market there are a number of small restaurants that specialize in....sushi.  Makes sense.  However, since everyone wants to eat there, the lines snake for hundreds of feet.  Most people will wait for up to three hours to eat at one of these restaurants.  Onions and I took a pass.

Capsule Hotel

In many of the large cities in Japan there are Capsule Hotels.  Let's take a tour.

Here in the lobby, you are required to put your shoes in a locker.  At that point you check-in.

The 9-Hours Capsule Hotel in Kyoto has 9 floors.  Women sleep on floors 3 and 4 and men on 6 through 8.  Men and women take separate elevators.

What's on floor 9 you ask? (or floor 5 for women)  Up on the ninth floor are lockers in which you store your luggage.

The showers and sinks to wash up are also located on the ninth floor.  Capsule hotels follow the tradition of providing sleepwear.

So here, on the sixth floor, is where Onions and I slept.  And this is where the name capsule hotel comes from.  In this room are about 25 pods in which guests sleep.

This is what a capsule looks like as you enter it.  At the far end is a panel which has plugs to charge your electronics, your light switch and an alarm clock.

From the inside looking out.

To get privacy, you can pull down a screen and you are now enveloped in your capsule.  Overall the capsule hotel was a unique experience and the only issue I had was that there was no way control the temperature (I was hot) in the capsule.

Kyoto Food

Our second day in Kyoto started out rainy and overcast, so we decided to take a walk through the food stalls in Kyoto's commercial district.  I was amazed by the colors more than anything else.

Japan, being an island nation....loves fish.  Raw, cooked or dried.

One of more interesting shops was one that specialized in knives.

Eel is prevalent in Japanese cuisine....and so there are special eel knives!

Onions eats his first raw oyster!

Look at the color of those carrots!

Hochi tea.....my favorite.  I came home with three bags.

Miso covers EVERYTHING!

Eel

This grinder is producing green tea flavoring.  Green tea flavor is a huge staple of Japanese flavoring.

A Weekend in Kyoto

Kyoto is the ancient capital of Japan and it's cultural heart.  But out in the western part of the city is the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove.

The quiet, the light and the sound of the bamboo being rustled by the wind was so peaceful.  Hard to imagine that the big city is just a few hundred meters away.

Right next to the bamboo grove is the Okochisanso Garden, which is part of the estate of a famous Japanese Actor who made his home here and was the one who developed the garden.

The view of Kyoto from Okochisanso Garden.

The actor built this small shrine on his property....the garden grew around it.

Make sure to hold onto your entrance ticket.  It's good for some tea and refreshments!

Kyoto has more temples than one person can visit in a short visit.  One of the temples I wanted to visit was Ryoan-ji because I remember coming to this temple with my family in the early 1980's.  What I remember was being puzzled by everyone's intense appreciation for a rock garden.

And....here it is. When I was a kid, I just couldn't understand why there was such admiration for this rock garden.  It's just a bunch of rocks.  But now I understand that it's a place of peace and reflection and the rocks are part of that process.

The pond at Ryoan-ji.

Just up the road is THE MUST SEE temple in Kyoto...Ginkaku-ji.

The Golden Temple

It's looks peaceful and calm......

But here are the HORDES of people pushing each other to get a picture.  The temple grounds were a madhouse.

As a total non sequitur, Japanese hotels give you a "yukata" to wear.  They are comfortable!

On our second day, we went to the Higashiyama area to visit the Kiyomizu-dera Temple.  Unfortunately, the main temple is under reconstruction and Onions and I chose not to pay the entrance fee.  Instead we found other things to look at.

For 100 Yen, take off your shoes, grab the rope with your left hand, descend into the dark passages below....to find out what you see, you're going to have to go to Kiyomizu-dera yourself.

In this part of town, Gion, a large number of Japanese women wore the traditional kimono.  I'm not sure why...

Walking around at night, it seems like every building had a sign like this out front.  I found them indecipherable.