The fourth day of Tokyo was an early day. I typically don't wake up early unless it is for an extremely good reason, but that day we went to the Tsukuji Fish Market. Also known as the place where the fishermen sell their fish right after they catch them. We stopped by a sushi restaurant nearby and ate some FOB fish. The FOBs were delicious. My personal favourite was the sea urchin, with the fatty tuna a close second. If that wasn't enough, we went for some Chirashi don (raw fish on a bed of rice) RIGHT after. Oh Japan, you've ruined my palette for sushi now. I dread eating sushi in Toronto now...
(This cost 3500 yen!)
Chirashi-don, but it wasn't as good as the fish market restaurant.
Picture of the fish market. Next year the fish market will be re-located to a more remote area.
After that, we went to Ginza to check out the masssssive Muji there as well as the Sony entertainment store. We took a look at the 3D TV technology, and I was quite surprised how sharp it was. Though, realistically, it just looks like layers of 2D TV stacked in front of one another. However, my foot started acting out that day so I went back to the hotel early to rest. However, Mandy continued and went to Roppongi. There was a cool store that sold a lot of kawaii (cute) stuff. [Mandy's note: We went to Roppongi Hills, which is a relatively newer shopping area. The interior design of the mall was simplistic and serene; lots of water falls and bamboo trees inside the mall! We found a Joel Robuchon bakery inside the mall and I had a very delicious peach tart. It was so good I went back to buy one for Norm.]
On the fifth day, we checked out DisneySea... not Disneyland, but DisneySea, which is an exclusive park available in Japan. It was actually quite good, we stayed for the whole day and watched fireworks and the water/fire show. With my awesome skills, I managed to win a Stitch doll from the carnival games! Plus most importantly, I pushed Mandy to go on her first roller coaster ever! Check out Mandy's expression when we went on the Tower of Terror. [Mandy's note: I'm willing to go on a roller coaster but I still can't convince Norm to watch the Sex in the City movie. Sigh]
On the sixth day, we went to follow a tour to check out Mt. Fuji. If my foot was okay we would've hiked up the mountain but we had to settle for a tour. The peak stations had some really beautiful scenery - mountains shrouded with wispy white fog.
We went for a boat ride, and were supposed to take the cable cars to check out the scneery. However, it was raining quite heavily and the cable cars weren't open in case of lightning. So instead they gave us aquarium passes. It was kind of cool I guess, though I would have preferred to go on the cable cars. Though, we did see some fish, penguins, jelly fish, crabs and other cool crustaceans.
Lastly, we took the bullet train (shinkansen) back and a typical 90 minute journey was shortened to simply 30 minutes. The infrastructure in Japan/Asia is just amazing.
The last day was an easy day. Did some light shopping and we went to the Airport. Note to self: take the Narita Airport Express when going to the airport rather than the ordinary JR express. A 2 hour commute could have been a 30 minute commute with an additional 1500 yen or 15 dollars. Luckily I had my DS with me.
Sayonara Japan. I will miss you and your delicious food. (Mandy bought some 800 yen grapes and went crazy with happiness.)
Norman-san
Mandy's expression on the roller coaster is HILARIOUS! What a cute photo! The sushi looks so good and the grapes look so plump and perfect! No wonder she went nuts.
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