Day 3: Fish Market and Gardens

Still rising early because of the jet lag, we decided to have early breakfast at hotel and take our booked sushi breakfast as a sort of "brunch" later on. Lord Goodman eat your heart out.

Is that a turnip? Near Asakusa subway.

We caught the subway to Tsujikishijo, having topped up our IC transport passes (supplied by Inside Japan, these are like Oyster cards in London but allow you to travel hassle-free not only on the Tokyo subway, but also in most other Japanese cities).

Where to go?

Sushi Breakfast

We arrived at the fish market via one of the underground shopping arcades of which Tokyo is fond - maximising available space I suppose - this one fun to look at but featuring high-end goods which none of us were interested in shopping for. Although we weren't nearly early enough to catch the wholesale fish market itself in full flow, we enjoyed an excellent sushi breakfast at the Sushizanmai restaurant nearby (but what did the chefs say to greet us when we entered?). The best (and certainly  the freshest) sushi we'd ever had.

We all did various swaps with Imogen to ensure she had enough vegetarian options.

After our second breakfast of the day, we wandered through the bustling market, buying some red buns to eat later in the park. Then it was time to find a post office to try the ATMs to get some more Yen (really just to prove that we could, although as it transpired we already had more than enough cash to last the whole holiday, food and other daily living expenses not being as expensive as we had feared, helped by a favourable exchange rate;  but most transactions, including in restaurants and department stores seem to be in cash, so having plenty of cash on hand was important), and some stamps for our postcards home; the nice lady at the post office gave us a free postcard of the skytree for the kids.

Guess what this shop sells

Hama-rikyu gardens in Tsujiki was another example of the glories of Japanese garden architecture; a beautiful setting surrounded by high rises, with bridges, lakes (full of carp) and beauty all around. We sat on a bench near a very, very old tree and ate the buns we bought in the market.

A pity we'd missed the cherry blossom.

From the gardens we take a river boat to make our way back to Asakusa; plenty of good views on the journey, and a commentary in English as well as Japanese and at least one other language.

This evening we collect our JR rail passes; these indispensible items will provide us with 2 weeks' free travel on nearly all our train journeys around Japan, and even the ferry which we'll take later to Miyajima, and we go ahead and reserve seats for the journeys to Hakone tomorrow, and on from Hakone to Kyoto on Friday.

For supper this evening we went to Sasayonuki restaurant in the Taito district of Tokyo; not too far from the JR station so we found it fairly easily. As was usual with Japanese restaurants or hotels, it's really useful to have a photograph of what it looks like so that you can spot it from the street, as to untutored western eyes there are almost no clues as to the function of a building from the outside (and very few street names or building numbers).


We were greeted by a venerable Japanese gentleman who took our shoes, before proceeding to the tatami-matted interior. Unlike the Okonomiyaki restaurant the previous evening, this restaurant was obviously one for the locals and a little more formal, but we were made to feel welcome (as always in Japan) even if I am sure we committed all kinds of breaches of etiquette.

The restaurant specialised in tofu dishes, which was of great relief to Imogen as the word vegetarian apparently translates into Japanese as "eats fish".
This was high class tofu indeed, creamy and silky smooth, and vastly different from the coarser stuff available in the UK.

Everything was beautifully presented; there is a quotation from a Japanese poem "western food - every damned plate round", and the diverse array of dishes and plates was a sight to behold.









Back to the hotel for our last night in Asakusa, and a walk (or in Samuel's case, a run) through the now deserted shops around the temple.