Day 3

So day 3 begins. We wake up around 5am to head to the Tsukiji Fish Market. This was the first time we were going to travel on the subway in Tokyo. In Tokyo, they have many transit systems: Toei Line (which consists of 4 subway lines), Tokyo Metro System (which consists of I believe 8 subway lines), in addition to the JR lines, Keio lines, private rails etc. It was pretty scary the fact that we would be riding the subway for the first time not knowing where to go. We head downstairs to the lobby and we asked one of the staff working in the lobby how to head there. He says take the "Oedo" Line to Tsukiji-shijo. We were thinking okay, how are we going to find this? So we entered one of the tunnels nearby the hotel and took a walkway towards the subway kind of like Toronto's PATH system? I haven't really been but I think it's similar. Anyways, in Shinjuku, it's one of the busiest train stations in Tokyo. Approximately 2 million people cross Shinjuku Station everyday. So every line crosses to this station ie. both subway systems (Toei and Tokyo Metro) in addition to NEX, JR, etc. So standing in the center of everything, we weren't sure where to go. We figured to just ask someone. We found the entrance to the Oedo line and one of the attendants sitting in the booth came out to help us. He told us to purchase our tickets at the kiosk. This is also another cool thing about the Metro Systems here. The attendants are there to just monitor that people enter and exit properly. When you enter, you have to insert your ticket and the gates stay open, and when you exit you have to enter your ticket again (the same one that is returned to you). Anyhow, it's so organized here. No lines to purchase tickets or Metro passes, just all automated ticket machines. So we end up buying each of us a ticket for the one day open pass which is pretty much a day pass. However, this gets tricky because we are only allowed to use the Toei Subway System because that's the ticket we bought it for. Meaning we only get to use the 4 lines.

So planning our day we had to make sure we knew where we were going so that we don't need the Tokyo Metro System which costs 710 Yen for an one day pass vs. Toei which costs 500 Yen. We take the subway down to Tsukiji and exit. You can tell we're on the right track because we see many tourists from different ethnic backgrounds exiting this station. We head into the warehouse which is a huge huge huge (ie. size of a mall) but all one floor marketplace where all they sell are fresh seafood. We saw a lot of different things such as crabs, squid, octupus, salmon, HUGE HUGE blue fin tuna (we have pics to post later) and you get the picture. It was actually quite fascinating how fresh everything was but you know for sure it was expensive! After exiting the marketplace the other more quieter side sold fruits and vegetables. We exited this market and headed to the side markets. We bought some green tea, which by the way is really good here and refreshing. We walked along the same market and came across many different sushi restaurants. These restaurants basically serve the fresh fish from the market. We picked one that looked good, from seeing a crowd around the restaurant and a line around. We waited for about 45mins for just a seat. The restaurant is tiny, it's more like a bar that had max 10 seats so the wait was long but well worth it. We finally get seated and we pre-ordered our meals. We each had something different. Ray had Tuna, minced tuna, salmon in his on a bed of rice mixed with seaweed. I had Salmon, raw scallops, roe (the orange fish eggs which are like huge like a small marble here lol), crab (not the fake crab, the real deal from crab legs). It was amazing! The taste was like super fresh and so flavourful. Each bowl cost us 1200-1600 yen which is pretty expensive.

So after our meals we made our way to Asakusa which is where the Senji-jo temple is and Imperial Palace after.

To be Continued...