Day 7~10: Tokyo

The sightseeing at Tokyo began with the iconic gate of the Sensoji, aka Asakusa Temple.

We went in and offered incenses, praying for you know what. Judging by the sheer number of visitors, that's a good load of wishes to review.

Followed by Akihabara, which despite its reputation for electronics and anime/manga merchandise, offered delicious cheese tarts.

We caught the penultimate train heading to Tsukiji Shijo at arrived slightly past 1AM. Yet the loading bay was brightly lit and running.

Being the broke blokes that we were, arriving by the last trains instead of taking a taxi, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise, since we arrived really early. There was only about 10 guests who were queueing in front of us.

From here it was a long wait, though thanks in part to the drizzle, the guards kindly opened up the waiting room ahead of time and ushered us to wait indoors.

It was at about 5:20AM when the security began to unlock the door for the first batch of visitors to view the tuna auctions. By then, the drizzle had become much heavier, and the small distance from the holding room to the inner market was sufficient to ensure everyone was splattered with rain.

I suspect the premium tunas were already auctioned off before we arrived and it was only the frozen tunas, together with a handful of traders when we reached the auction hall.

The shower continued after we were done with viewing the auction. Nearly drenched in rain and with stomaches growling after a restless night, we were desperate for some hot food. It took us a while to get our orientation right in the labyrinth, but eventually we arrived in front of this Sushizanmai restaurant.

Sleep-deprived brains don't really function well and I simply asked for the chef's recommendation.

I didn't really liked the minced gunkan roll, but the maguro nigiris are certainly fantastic, especially the seared otoro, which is simply delicious.

The glutton in me decided to top up another crab soup, since I didn't really get a chance to feed on crabs back in Hakodate. It was half of a small hairy crab served with miso soup base. Usually I am quite fond of miso, but in this case I find the miso slightly masking the sweetness of the crab, though it was nevertheless a great dish. The best part? It only costed JPY 600. 

In total I paid about JPY 2,000, which is less than SGD 25. Considering all the seafood being fresh from the Tsukiji market, I would think it's a real bargain.

To my dismay the rain did not stop after breakfast, though it abated slightly in intensity. We had an appointment with the Emperor (ahem) at 10AM to visit his house.

It's interesting to see while the main architecture is Asian, ornament features on the railings are actually pretty similar to what you would see in Europe, say Buckingham.

We had a quick stroll at Ginza after touring through the palace grounds. However due to the never-ending drizzle and sore bodies after a virtually sleepless night, we quickly retreated to a nearby cafe for some well-deserved rest.

The final full day in Japan was dedicated wholly to Tokyo Disneyland. In contrast to the gloomy drizzle we experienced while sightseeing through downtown Tokyo, the weather was incredibly clear and sunny during our visit to Disneyland.

Photo credit to JJ

We were greeted at the entrance by Cinderella's castle, a standard feature in all Disneyland theme parks and somewhat reminding me of its inspirations in Fontainebleau and Neuschwanstein.

We had arranged to meet a friend on the last night in Japan, and hence decided to give the fireworks a miss. Nevertheless as I underestimated the sheer size of the Tokyo metro we were still late by a sizeable margin.