First off, jet lag is a thing. You'd think after many international trips we would have figured this out by now, but it caught us off guard [again]. Dumdums.
Lucky for us when you wake up at 3:00 AM, there is a fish market you can go to. Also, apparently only the best sushi is available before 5:30AM, so another win for the [unintentional] early birds. If you arrive at the Tsukiji fish market early enough, you can watch the tuna auction. We were definitely there early enough, but couldn't find the entrance, so we settled for some coffee (because, hello, it was 3:30 AM) and sushi.
Seriously, though, the sushi. Morning, afternoon, and evening (made me think of this song, which now watching the clip is beyond terrifying. Sorry for triggering nightmares).
Aside from mind-blowing sushi, the ramen. Oh my gawd. Delish. We ate a TON of ramen in Tokyo, as it tends to be cheap and consistently incredible.
We also headed to Akihabara and went to the Sega building. It was insane. 7 floors of arcade games (etc.). It was like Chuck E. Cheese on crack cocaine, and the most stimulus I've ever experienced.
Dad, you may or may not receive one of these in the mail. #merrychristmas
We raced each other in Japanese Mario Cart. I won. End of story.
Quick note on the photo booths: they are bizarre. This is a preview of my model face.
Practice pays off.
Akihabara: win.
Some rando notes on our first impressions of Japan:
Lucky for us when you wake up at 3:00 AM, there is a fish market you can go to. Also, apparently only the best sushi is available before 5:30AM, so another win for the [unintentional] early birds. If you arrive at the Tsukiji fish market early enough, you can watch the tuna auction. We were definitely there early enough, but couldn't find the entrance, so we settled for some coffee (because, hello, it was 3:30 AM) and sushi.
Seriously, though, the sushi. Morning, afternoon, and evening (made me think of this song, which now watching the clip is beyond terrifying. Sorry for triggering nightmares).
We also headed to Akihabara and went to the Sega building. It was insane. 7 floors of arcade games (etc.). It was like Chuck E. Cheese on crack cocaine, and the most stimulus I've ever experienced.
Dad, you may or may not receive one of these in the mail. #merrychristmas
We raced each other in Japanese Mario Cart. I won. End of story.
Quick note on the photo booths: they are bizarre. This is a preview of my model face.
Practice pays off.
- The people are incredibly friendly. We only know how to say "yes" and "thank you," but there has always been someone near that is eager to help our dumb asses out.
- It's VERY clean. Like strangely clean, which is awesome.
- We have had the most delicious coffee. Most coffee shops don't open until ~11, so we're going for quality >quantity here. Also, breakfast hot dogs are a thing [as in, a hot dog, bun, and mustard at 7AM] #benwin
- The weather sucks. It's cold and wet and has rained the whole time. We likely won't see any sun for the ENTIRE 14 DAYS we are here.
- We didn't check out Shinjuku until our last night, and were kind of bummed we didn't spend more time there. It was beautiful:
Overall, Tokyo was a solid first stop. We just got to Tanabe as a quick stop over before we start our Kumano Kodo trek for 4 days.
That ramen looks amazing! Glad you two are having a great time!
ReplyDelete