Because of our, ahem, early bedtime, we all woke up at about 3 am and decided to try for the fish market. We missed the tuna auction (seats are limited and rumored to basically be all taken by about 4), but wanted to walk around anyway. It’s basically a fend-for-yourself situation, since it’s a commercial operation. Cyclists, truck drivers and especially these guys on yellow fork lifts without the fork zoomed by, honking with no thought of slowing. IRL Frogger – less fun than the video game implies!

Turns out, the fish market isn’t open to the public until 9, but the outer market and the breakfast sushi places were open. We chose one that was playing Abba and The Eagles, were immediately brought hot green tea and we pointed to the words “today’s recommendation” on the menu to order.

We had a few more minutes until nine, so when we walked by a booth serving two pieces of o-toro tuna for 600 yen (apparently goes for much higher in the US), we snagged one and ate it standing right there. It might have been my favorite piece of fish all morning!

We walked around some more, got some samples and checked out some really great vending machines.

Time to tackle the big boy (and I mean big! We never made all the way through the building): Tsujiki Fish Market. Tunas bigger than me, wiggling sea creatures, knives, swords and bandsaws fileting fish, and blood and guts everywhere.

Wanting to check out a different neighborhood, we headed toward Ueno Park in search of an Azalea Festival. We stopped for ice cream, where we had our first vending machine/person service experience. These machines are everywhere – you put in your money, chose what you want and it prints a ticket for you to give the counter person. They have them in noodle shops, sushi restaurants, ice cream stands and all kinds of other places. Then we stumbled upon a ‘Traditional Arts & Crafts’ fair. The booths where demonstrating how to make Daruma dolls, write your name in Japanese alphabet characters, throwing star practice, and a booth to try on a kimono. We got some strangely long french fries topped with cod roe and mayo (pretty good) and Wagyu beef skewers (VERY good), and watched an acrobatic monkey show, until I got too bummed thinking about that monkey’s life.

We headed to a different park nearby for the azaleas!

When we got home to rest and recuperate, the school behind us was holding after school baseball practice. Let me tell you, those kids were noisy! Just shouting the ENTIRE time, but not in like a little kid way. We have a theory that that’s just how they play baseball – tbd when we head to the diamond on Saturday.

We headed towards Shinjuku, the busy commercial area where we found the tiny streets full of tiny restaurants yesterday to finally get some yakatori in a tiny, TINY smoky restaurant. Yakatori is just grilled things on sticks – skewers cooked over coal just right there on the counter. The cook/server/cashier/ONLY EMPLOYEE (guess he’s all that would fit in there) gave us a plate of edamame and we ordered what looked like the greatest hits special set. Fish balls, chicken thighs, pork hearts, plus my two favorites: blistered green peppers and these really great chicken wings.