Sorry about the crappy cell-phone picture, but I had left the camera with the party at the club. The guy on the stool is the auctioneer and yells stuff out nonstop as he goes from fish to fish. People just put up gang-signs and that means something apparently. No flash is allowed because the auctioneer needs to be able to see everyone and, more importantly, their hands.. I have absolutely no idea what prices these things were being bought at, but each fish literally took about ten seconds at most to sell. For about twenty minutes before this, the wholesalers walked around the fish with small hand pickaxes and tested various qualities of the tuna by hacking at it and tearing pieces of it away. The whole thing was fascinating but doesn't require more than one viewing. Next time I'm in Tsukiji, it'll be just for fruit and sushi.Because that's what we did Saturday morning anyway so successfully. We were in line for 大和寿司 -Daiwa Sushi, when we had to leave to meet up with everyone else. Daiwa Sushi and Sushi Dai are the two most famous places within the market. There is an outer market as well where we headed to meet up with the other clubbers. On our way there, we passed a fruit stand and couldn't resist its lure. This beautiful box of peaches was 1500 Yen and the huge bunch of bananas was 250 Yen. I just counted and the bunch had 21 bananas. Guess we'll be eating a lot of those.
We've had these yellow peaches before and they're amazing. You would end up paying the same amount for them in the States, so 1500 Yen in Tokyo is practically a steal.Ok, so we had a bag full of bananas and a box of peaches when we found everyone else and headed to 寿司ざんまい - Sushi Zanmai. I found out today that Sushi Zanmai has expanded into a chain and they are very heavily tuna oriented. Kevin did it right when he went for the only o-toro and chu-toro. V and I each had an assorted set and everyone else ordered a variety of pieces.
Sushi Zanmai was very good, better than anything we really get in Chicago, but Sushi Dai costs 1000 Yen more and tastes twice as good. I really can't explain it; both of them should be super fresh, but there are a couple of shops that just deliver life-altering taste (after a two hour wait). Still I'll probably be back at Sushi Zanmai again, but more on that later.
Everybody scattered and went home, and I successfully gave Kevin the wrong directions back to Ikebukuro. Maybe I should have been more apologetic to him, but I hadn't slept and was not in my right mind.
10 AM: Sleep
2 PM: Awake
I had another friend, Jon, who was flying in late Saturday afternoon. He was stopping by after a business trip to Taipei and so I got up to be ready for his call/email. Sometime around 4 PM, he called me from his hotel in Shinjuku and we met up shortly after. I gave him my go-to Harajuku -> Cat Street -> Shibuya Crossing tour.
Kevin, Miwa, and Izumi had met up earlier to go to Indian Fest in Yoyogi Park and V went to find them. Jon and I waited in Shibuya while everyone else joined us at Hachiko before heading to shabu shabu + sukiyaki. The restaurant we went to actually had a whole bunch of different hot-pot type broths as well. I've heard of sukiyaki but definitely didn't know exactly how its eaten. Turns out sukiyaki is a nabe of a soy based broth which you then dip into raw egg. The hot boiled food cooks the egg slightly and compliments it pretty well.
The whole dipping into raw egg thing is not unweird, but the Japanese love their raw food. We've had way more raw eggs and raw meat than we're used to since arriving here. In general, nabe type meals are 食べ放題 - all you can eat and so I drank another glass of shochu instead of filling up on beer. I've been having a pretty good time with shochu on the rocks and くろうま - black horse, was both delicious and deliciously named.
After dinner, somehow Kevin and Jon owned the table at a pool hall. Izumi did pretty well for a beginner and the time to either stay out or call it a night quickly approached. The last few days have made me very aware of how important midnight is to Tokyo nightlife. I miss leaving bars satisfied and not hammered at 1 or 2 AM. In this city, a lot of people live farther away and actually need to leave at 11:30 PM in order to make their transfers. Of course there are also the random people you find just totally passed out at like 9 PM as well.
So last night, V, Jon, Izumi, Miwa, and I ended up heading home (hopefully on time) and the other three stayed out. After that I'm really not sure what happened to Los and Kevin. I hope they made their flight and everything...I woke up pretty early and hung out with Jon before we had to go. We kind of just walked through Asakusa and Ueno before stopping for some sushi. I'll be back in that area of town to do it again like a proper tourist. While we took the train across town, I looked up sushi on my phone and found a decently rated place in Ueno. So we ended up going to no place other than Sushi Zanmai in Ueno, my second Sushi Zanmai experience in 48 hours. This time I asked to sit at the bar, and Jon went for the tuna set while I ordered piece by piece. The set cost 3000 Yen, but my eight or so pieces only set me back 1600 Yen.
I'm pretty sure that this is the way to go. Japan in general has been pretty bad at delivering value in quantity, and I'm going to make a point of ordering everything on an individual basis. Not only do I get to eat what I want, but it'll probably cost me less as well. I've been using the following example on everybody: Red Bull here comes in two sizes, 250 ml and 185 ml. The larger can goes for 275 Yen while the smaller can is 200 Yen. This means that the larger can costs 1.1 Yen per ml while the smaller is 1.081 Yen per ml. I looked up Red Bull on amazon.co.jp. I can get a 24 pack of the 250 ml cans for 6600 Yen, which is just 275 x 24!
This doesn't hold true all the time, but as strange as it sounds you can actually find value by buying small in Tokyo.
This last week has been way too crazy. Sure it was fun, but both we and the girls who live here spent too much money everyday. It's just really tough keeping pace with vacationers and it'll be nice to settle down and ease the burden off our wallets a bit. I'm sure Izumi, Miwa, and D all agree.
Actually, D is going to Cambodia or something tomorrow. Never mind.
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