Heaven & the Breakfast of Champions

The Tokyo fish market, called Tsukiji, is said to be the biggest in the world. Many tourists go there at 5 in the morning to witness the day's tuna auctions. I am sure they are thrilling affairs, but I don't know that I'd walk across the street at 2 in the afternoon to see a tuna auction, let alone get up at 5am. Tsukiji also offers a bunch of hole-in-the-wall sushi places, though, and they are reputed to have the best sushi, anywhere, at reasonable (but not cheap) prices. They're open only in the morning.

The shops have a single counter with 8 or 10 seats, no tables. A couple of the places are ultra-renowned -- they both had long lines that snaked through the market, so I ducked into a place that had an empty stool and ordered a few pieces of fatty tuna, sea urchin (uni), and salmon. Oh. My. God. This had to be the 7th Station of Sushi Enlightenment. The texture, the flavor, the temperature. Plus, the sushi chef was fun and hospitable, spoke more than enough English, and the whole experience was terrific. Glad I didn't wait the 2 hours or so for the other places. The place I went is called Ya-Ma-Za-Ki, though that might not do you much good unless you read Japanese.

Tokyo is the ultimate non-stop city. Throngs of people are going in every direction all of the time. Everyone walks with purpose -- no strolling allowed here -- and one person breaking into a trot seems to spur a herdlike reaction as everyone else decides that it must be a good idea to get wherever in a bit more of a hurry. The subway system is easy to use and impossible to figure out, proving that this is a place of contradictions.

So, I haven't found much of anything I felt like taking pictures of, except for YaMaKaZi's joint and the line of people who would remain hungry for a while: