Heading into Tokyo

Since we went to sleep early you would think I would wake early.  I was quite surprised to wake up and see it was 9:30 AM...wow...I guess I needed the sleep.

Before even getting out of bed, I was back at the trip planning...why is this so hard?!?  I headed upstairs around 10:30 AM to have some breakfast and to sit on the couch for trip planning.  Right about 11 AM the house began to shake....EARTHQUAKE!!  It only lasted 5-10 seconds, but it was obviously felt.  This is definitely not going to be the last earthquake we encounter.  

Trip planning was finally done...well...done-ish by 1 PM, so now I can concentrate on what we are going to do the next 6 days in Tokyo...a much easier task than figuring out what we are going to do for the next 3 months.  

We headed to the train station around 2:30 PM to go to our rental apartment for the next 7 days.

The apartment we rented is in the area of Tokyo called Tsukiji.  Until recently, it was home to the famous fish market where the daily fish auctions took place and seafood was sold.  The auction and actually seafood market moved, but the restaurants that built themselves around the market has remained.  This will be a great place to eat something different every morning before we head out for the day.

I was a bit worried about this apartment since it did look pretty nice in the photos, but from experience, the photos always make the places look nice.  What a great surprise to arrive at the apartment and find it just like advertised.  This place is small, but is brand new and has everything we will need for our stay here in Tokyo.

We unpacked, relaxed a bit, and then headed out to our first Tsukiji restaurant.  I noted and saved on Google Maps a sushi restaurant while watching a YouTube video on Tokyo a while back.  It just happens to be a 5 minute walk from the apartment.  This is Sushi-cyoh.  As expected there was a line, so we signed in and waited our turn.

After 45 minutes we were finally in.  Here is a portion of the menu.  The prices of the Nigiri is about 1/3 the price of other Sushi restaurants in the area.  By the way....100 Yen (¥100) equals $0.72 USD, so the Nigiri ranged from $0.64 to $3.14 USD per piece. 

How do they keep their prices so low?  It is because of the size of the restaurant.  It is so small that you have stand at the sushi bar to eat because there is not room for seats or tables.

The standing was so worth it though.  I only took photos of a couple of the pieces,  The first photo is of the typical salmon and tuna, but so much better than anything in the States.  The shrimp is actually Ama-Ebi (Sweet Shrimp) which they do not have in the States...yum!  The third was on a special menu, Cutlassfish...hum...I just looked it up and it is a weird looking fish.  The fourth photo is Anago (Conger Eel AKA Saltwater Eel).

Lastly...one of my favorites...Uni (Sea Urchin) which is available, though rarely, in the States.  At ¥440 => $3.14 per piece it was a surge, but in the U.S. it is more than double that.

We were done eating 40 minutes later and was ready to pay the bill.  This is how the sushi chef kept track of what we ate...interesting.  If you count up all the numbers, we ate 31 pieces of Nigiri.  The price was actually pretty high at ¥9,800 => $70, but if you average it out, that is $2.26 per piece.  Considering we bought 8 "expensive" pieces...it was a bargain.

We walked back to the apartment via a walk in the park detour to walk off some of the food, and a grocery store detour to buy some fresh fruit.  After a bit more Tokyo planning and blogging it is time for bed.  Tomorrow we start our tour of Tokyo walking around Harajuku & Aoyama. Until then...