Thursday, April 19, 2012

Tokyo by rail...Morning...Tsukiji Fish Market,

Headed out the main gate this morning and walked to the Sagamino Station about a mile down the road. Cloudy day but no rain!
Rule #1 - always have a picture of where
you need to return to in case you get lost!

We rode the express train to Yokohama Station. We found out why it was the express! It stopped at five stations and at the fifth the packers were there to make sure every conceivable space on the train was filled! We thought at the fourth station it was about as crowded as it could get...wrong! When we left Station 5 we couldn't move arms or feet and the crowd moved as one when we hit a curve. No use stopping at another station so skipped the last 7 - thus express! Rush hour is something everyone should experience...once.
Yokohama Station was also crazy but it's a strangely Japanese organized chaos. No one looked mad, no one raised their voices. The train to Shimbashi was much the same...packed but everyone sleeps, or appears to sleep and seemingly unaware of the mass of people with them. The population in this area is so dense that you rarely are anywhere there aren't people...only an occasional garden or open space. We switched to the subways to Ginza and then on to Tsukiji and out to visit the Tsukiji Fish Market.
Acres and acres of fresh seafood of all shapes, sizes, colors that came off the boat this morning. They used to let people in for the tuna auctions, but that has stopped now and you just wander through the hundreds of stalls...
We had wondered how many tons of ice they must use in a morning. While we didn't get that answer we did see the crusher. They have blocks of ice about 3'x1x'1' that are fed up a conveyer and then go through a crusher and the guys come with their buckets, boxes etc and get it filled up. It was an incredible operation...spotlessly clean...absolutely no fishy smell and to watch them fillet the fish was awesome...all the same thickness and exactly even. his guy was scrubbing and sharpening his knife which was about 3 1/2 feet long. It was a wonderful experience. We wandered some of the tiny side streets loaded with sushi and fish stores...also wonderful vegetable stands...all picture perfect!

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