Monday, 21 July 2008

Fish market, stock exchange and great views!

I was a little late getting to the station, 5:30am rather than 5, but no sign of Jairo. I waited around for a while before deciding he was a no-show and heading off to the fish market on my own.

This place was brutal. Live fish were being pulled from tanks and having their heads and tails cut off. Dead fish were coming back to life and flapping their tails so hard they jumped out of their dry dishes. Piles of dead fish would contain one or two still breathing and flapping. The floor wash awash with bloody water. It was generally quite nasty but amazing to see at the same time.

I got just a couple of 'OK' shots. For these, I had to wait patiently for people to move and knives to be sharpened, all the while moving out of the way of the busy workers including guys on mini fork-lift-type vehicles (danger of getting toes run over!).


I had to head back to the hotel after the market to wash my feet and sleep. I was dead. This was my first snooze of the day.

When I surfaced, I had another go at the stock exchange.


Then Tokyo Tower...


...where I had to have a go at this...


...then the World Trade Centre. It's only 40 floors (not 110) but still offered stunning views in all directions. I noticed Rainbow Bridge where I want to go tomorrow.


At 6pm, I had to head back for another snooze. The early start killed me and the mid-morning snooze just wasn't enough. Like all snoozes, it went on far too long: several hours instead of a few minutes.

Dinner was interesting. I wanted something Japanese, close to my hotel. I walked and walked but struggled to find a place where I could order anything. The real local places don't have English menus, the staff don't speak any English and they don't have pictures of food for me to point at. I got so far then took a subway back to Ueno where eventually I found somewhere good. The food was nice on the whole except for the pincers at the bottom of my bowl - yuk!

I noticed in my spam folder an email from Jairo. He sent it last night to say he'd be a little late getting to the fish market due to the subway timetable. I called to apologise for not seeing the email so we've agreed to meet at his hotel at Ginza tomorrow at 10am.

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