The museum was a little way away, in Ueno, but was quite easy to get to. The collection – a bit like the one on show currently at the Rijks – is a good basic introduction to Japanese art and artifacts, sufficient for someone to be able to tell the difference between make-e enamel and carved lacquer, but not much more detailed than that. Some beautiful Hiroshige woodcuts (though slightly underwhelming Hokusai ones), some great textiles (especially late-Edo, mid 19th Century ones) and bronzes and some fantastic screens.
I then wandered around the back streets of Ueno, trying to get to Asakusa to catch the boat back down south, but kept getting lost; this was not in itself problematic: I had (I thought) nothing I was late for, and it was nice to have look around the non-touristy bits of a Tokyo neighbourhood. My best find was a fantastic shop selling knives and I am – at the time of writing – kicking myself for not having bought any (though I slightly comfort myself with the thought that traveling across 4 continents with high-carbon sushi knives would probably have been both cumbersome and occasionally difficult from a customs point of view. Still...).
I managed to get to Asakusa just in time to get in to have a look around the main temple there, which was oddly underwhelming: huge and outwardly impressive, but without any sense of mystery, wonder or even clear purpose (not in the strict sense – there were people praying and performing religious rituals – but in a slightly esoteric feel-of-the-place sense) – a bit like St Peter's in Rome, in a way.
Undeterred and photo'ed up, I proceeded to the pier to catch the boat back south – only to find out that the last one had sailed for that day. So back to the metro for me – and no river views.
Having spent the day wandering around – and now definitely not needing to be anywhere specific – I decided to try out Adam and Eve, a spa-type joint that regularly makes every list of things to do in Tokyo, from Wallpaper's to Time Out's via Luxe Guide's. This is a typically Japanese affair – separate-gender, spartan-looking and damp-smelling huge baths of water are surrounded by low showers (roughly at waist level) and little stools: one strips off, rinses off the little stool and then showers sitting down, washing from the feet up, then plunges in the hot (or cold, if that way inclined) pools, goes to the sauna and – and this is really the point – gets scrubbed down by ferocious-looking stern Korean Grannies. The KGs are armed with loofah-mitts and set to work on you as you lie there, spending half an hour seeing how much (mostly) dead skin they can remove from every part of your body. Nominally, one wears oversized green cotton boxers for this part, but the KGs go where they need to go and generally completely ignore these – this is not a place for the modest or bashful. Every time a cycle of scrubbing is completed – toe to head on your back, on each side, on your front – and you think it might be over, you get doused in hot water and she starts again, certain that there is a flake of dead skin somewhere that she has not sought out as yet. In many ways, getting flayed would be quicker – but eventually, when it IS over, it does feel great.
The next morning was, I figured, the best time to do the Tsukiji Fish Market – officially the biggest in Asia, which makes this blogger wonder how it is not thus the biggest in the world. Any readers who know or suspect which one might be bigger, please let me know – New York? Billingsgate is nothing next to this, so don't bother with that one...
As with all retail markets, it starts and finishes early and requires the amateur to set off early and to dodge the gruff people for whom this is more of a living and less of a photo-op – but, still being somewhat jetlagged, the 4am start was actually surprisingly easy. The gruff-dodging was somewhat more difficult and presented the greatest sartorial challenge of the trip so far: what does one wear to a fish market on a freezing winter's morning? All of the guides suggested wellies and cast-offs that one doesn't mind getting wet and smelling of fish. Yours truly was, however, somewhat limited by the clothes that he actually had with him (and owned – am not sure I have wellies anywhere, let alone in Tokyo).
In the event, I was certainly the only person there in a designer floor-length black wool/ gold brocade coat (it's the only one I have with me, and going without one wasn't an option in February) – though, to my infinite delight, I did spot a woman in what was either a gold velour D&G tracksuit or (and this is what I secretly believe, because it makes me happier), possibly, a cat suit. i like to think that she was going for some sort of hunter/prey cat(suit)/fish thing, as a comment on the predatory and base evolutionary natures of our continued reliance on feeding off other living beings, but she could have just been mad. Or maybe that was all SHE had brought to Asia with her, and we're kind of in the same boat.
The most famous event at Tsukiji is the daily tuna auction that takes place just before 6am: buyers spend the hour or two prior to this walking up and down rows of huge, glistening open-mouthed tuna-giants, inspecting, prodding, opening stomach cavities with huge grappling hooks and generally sizing them up. The auction for the numbered fish is then conducted silently, using an antiquated system of hand signals that is most similar to the one horse-racing pundits use – completely incomprehensible to the uninitiated, clear as day to those taking part. Sadly, tourists are no longer allowed to see this, as too many were crowding in and disrupting the genuine working of the trades – but I did get some photos of the inspection rituals beforehand.
I then wandered up and down the seemingly endless rows of seafood, presented here in all it's guises like an aquatic Boschian tableau – creatures alive and dead, mouths agape, tentacles sprawled and teeth bared, creatures frozen and fresh, young and old, creatures from all of Earth's recent evolutionary periods, from the ancient to the recently evolved – all laid out to be bought in prodigious quantities, boxed, carted, driven away and to get to the punters in time for dinner.
Now, the way to a man's stomach is through a delectable cornucopia of piscine fauna, so thoughts quickly turned to sushi (while not an obvious 6am breakfast choice, I have no designated times for seafood and, as some will attest, will happily go through a dozen oysters at 5am). Mercifully – and rather obviously, really, there were a number of sushi restaurants nearby. Coming, as they did, 18 hours after three-star sushi – and 36 hours after two-star blowfish – I was worried that there would be a lot to live up to; had Mizutani spoiled me for life, dooming me to never being satisifed with anything short of his mastery? No, obviously – in the same way as Le Gavroche doesn't stop you appreciating a great steak in your prix fixe menu in Paris. And the comparison is not a bad one – the sushi was obviously very fresh, but the rice, the sizes, the wasabi, the soy were all... fine. No more than that – very enjoyable, great, worth going to – and worth going to again – but very much an everyday-sushi experience.
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