Biel On The Go

Travel blog about trips to wonderful places around the world

Day 5: Tokyo’s Hidden Gems – Discover Toyosu and Tsukiji Markets, Sumo, and Udon.

Today the plan is to explore Tokyo by foot. We will go to very typical places you can not see anywhere else. Follow me!

The day started at 04:00am when we met a private tour guide at the reception. This tour guide, a local expert, will bring us to see the Tokyo Fish Market and auctions going on for real. The Auctions start at 05:00am and last for max 2h, reason why today we had to leave the hotel even before breakfast.

Here we are, Toyosu Market.

Facts about the Toyoso Market: “Toyosu Market in Tokyo, opened in 2018, is the largest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world, replacing the famous Tsukiji Market. Located on the artificial island of Toyosu, it houses a wide range of fresh seafood, fruits, and vegetables. The market is divided into sections for wholesale, auctions, and restaurants, with the tuna auction being one of its most popular attractions. It is designed with modern facilities and is known for its improved hygiene and efficiency compared to its predecessor” ChatGPT.

In this building is where the Tuna auction takes place. Every fish on the ground is one frozen Tuna fish, weighting around 50Kg and the average price for one single fish is U$40.000,00. Wow!!
And here is the auction. Pay attention at the guy moving back and forth giving the pace of the auction and the bidders the m the ground. Cool!

This was the auction of frozen Tuna caught far from Japan and brought here by fishermen and fishing companies. Below you can see also the fresh Tuna caught near Japan.

Fresh Tuna to be auctioned.
See how they use long hooks to move the fish back and forth.

In this huge building complex, they do not auction only Tuna, but all sorts of fishes, crustaceans, fruits, vegetables, etc.

This is the building for vegetables.
Auction of vegetables
Tsukiji Market (old fish market) at 05:30am. Shops opening up. It was the place where the auctions took place years ago now, it has become a street food market and a place to buy Japanese traditional food and souvenirs.

Second stop, after waking up so early, was to sit down and have breakfast. The tour told us the best sushi in Tokyo, from his perspective, could be found at this Market. We said, please bring us there… 🙂 But fist, we had to try out all sorts of delicacies…

Everything organized.
Look how the shops look like.
And we tried different food…
… and more food tasting…
… and more food tasting.
This is how Wasabi really looks like. It is a green root.
Tsukiji Market, a great place to get to know Japan in detail!

Before we went for the best SUshi in Tokyo, we stopped at a cafe at Tsukiji market to have a drink and say goodbye to the tour guide. Yonemoto Cafe or Beatles Cafe! 🙂

Here is the gang and Yoshi, our tour guide for the Auction Market and Tsukiji Market. A great person, really knowledgeable and fun!
Recovering from waking up early.

And now let’s go for the best sushi in Tokyo according to Yoshi. This is the place in Tsukiji Market.

A small door, with a few very small restaurants inside and there is the sushi bar Yoshi recommended.
Here it is… I will never forget, for me it was really the best sushi in the world. The Tuna melts in your mouth, you do not have to bite it or chew it. It is amazing!!!
This is an Art!
Tsukiji Market now at 10:00am… full, crowded! It was good that we arrived early here.

From Tsukiji Market, we took a cab we went to Hamarikyu. Here some facts about this garden:

“Hamarikyu Gardens is a historic public garden in Tokyo, originally built during the Edo period as a feudal lord’s villa. The garden features traditional Japanese landscape elements, such as carefully designed ponds, seasonal flowers, and teahouses. A unique feature is the seawater pond, which changes with the tide, reflecting its coastal origins. Located near Tokyo Bay, it offers a peaceful retreat from the city’s hustle. The garden is especially beautiful in spring for cherry blossoms and in autumn for colorful leaves” ChatGPT.

At the entrance with the garden on the back.
Pine tree planed by the 6th Shogun in 1709. Look at the wood poles holding the branches.
Inside this beautiful garden you can see how the houses of ancient Japan used to look like.
And suddenly we found a tea house in the middle of the pond.

(Japan 2024)

Typical Japanese Tea House. You have to take off your shoes before entering.
View from our table.
And this is why we came here… Matcha tea with some handmade delicacies.

As you can see, you have to eat a lot to get to know the Japanese culture better… this is how I see things, at least. 🙂 After our tea, we grabbed a taxi and when to our next stop of the day.

We will watch a Sumo Fight, or a demonstration of it, while we have some Japanese lunch. It took us some time to find this place. Google Maps sent us to a different place not far away. But, we figured it out soon.
And here we are, eating again.
Let the battle begin!
It was a great lunch with the Sumo Wrestlers, so much fun!!

After eating so much, we decided we needed to go back to the hotel to rest a bit so that… later on we could eat again, but this time Noodles.

And we decided to go to a place recommended by Tsubasa, our guide on the day we went to Mt. Fuji. The name of the place is Tsuru Ton Tan Shibuya, here is the link. And again we took the trains to go to Shibuya. I was excited because I had only seen Shibuya during the day.

Shibuya by night. So many lights, so many people on the streets.
About to cross…
Here is the restaurant: Tsuru Ton Tan Shibuya. You have to order everything through the iPad on the table. My daddy got wrong the size of the dishes and we got food for an Army. 🙂 It was delicious, with a lot of slurping!
After a full day on the road and tasting all sorts of delicious foods, on the way back to the hotel in one of the trains we decided a nap was more than deserved.
I came to the hotel, took a shower and went to straight to bed. My parents remained awake a bit longer and they felt an earthquake, 5.8 in the scale on March 15th 2024. See the snapshot of the Japanese Official Website for Earthquake Information. They told me everything shook for a few seconds! 🙂

(Japan 2024)

gnchudek

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