Japan - First Day without too much added commentary

I know you probably can't tell, but this awesome old lady was up at the asscrack of dawn (like me, but she does not have jetlag) pulling potatoes from her (probably illegal) garden in the space between the Lawsons and the train tracks. I am all about this.

Well Ladies and Gents, let's get started.
I flew in first class to Narita. I was out of place in first class, so this Singaporian guy asked me what I was doing there. I told him I purchased the ticket and he was instantly impressed and asked where I was going. I told him that I would be traveling alone to Tokyo for a month. He was incredibly impressed. Or embarassed for me. Hard to tell.
Customs and Health Check was a breeze. I was out in 15 minutes or so. I got lost finding Sakura House office.
I got my information from them etc and got lost trying to find Sendagaya. I got totally lost trying to find it again this morning, but that's ok, I'll figure it out eventually. I did find a "Natural Lawson" which must be the organic-y version of Lawson? And I found a really big supermarket. Things are good.













I left early this morning, around 5AM, to head to the Tsukiji Market aka the Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market. I really enjoy markets and this did not disappoint. Of course it was full of foreigners like myself in addition to the thousands and thousands of pounds of fish. I wasn't unusual so no one looked at me funny or even minded as I photographed so much of their market. It really made me want a better camera, but I did take some decent photos.















Cutting the tuna in action! There were so many live fish, crabs, and other weird things I don't know the name of. Just walking out of the station smelled like fish.
Of course I wandered down the wrong street because this guy was like "TUNA! THIISSU WAAAAY!!" I'm a sucker for yelling people.














I'm really game for an adventure this trip so all this getting lost hasn't phased me. The only thing I'm a little worried about is finding an international ATM in Sendagaya since it isn't very touristy.
I did locate a Softbank so I might pick up a prepaid phone but I haven't decided yet.
This market is massive and very confusing. I had a lot of fun trying not to get hit by cars and staring at rows and rows of the oceans bounty but now my shoes smell very very bad. I'm low on energy today 'cause of the jetlag but this morning I was very energetic. It made this market quite fun. There's another section that sells fruits and vegetables. It was really interesting to see what they would have to offer and I wasn't let down. Of course, I snapped a shot of a pretty fantastic variety of mushrooms. I don't know if you all can tell, but there are definitely some royal trumpet, maitake, lions head and oyster mushrooms in this picture.














There was also the 10500 YEN set of mangoes and the 10000 YEN set of strawberries. I am very lucky to live in the states 'cause fruit here is terrifyingly expensive. I ran into some Brits who asked me if I knew where one could food nearby. I had no idea, but I decided to wander around some more (by myself) and found a fantastic sushi place that seemed to be very popular. It was called Sushizanmai (they have a really great video on their website). Given that I am obviously foreign and my Japanese is rusty they were more than accommodating to my point and request method. I did not take any pictures of the sushi chefs or other customers. I thought that would be rude so best to avoid it when someone's making your food.














The sushi chef (I sat at the bar) even helped teach me how to pronounce really difficult things that I was ordering like "Ark Shell" which is pronounced "Aruku Shyeeru." The old Japanese man sitting next to me and his lady friends got a tremendous kick out of my requests so they turned to me and asked me "Oishii?" to which I responded to their delight "Hai! Hontoni Oishii!" They were impressed (woohoo, score 2 for Emma). They did approve of my taste because they ordered the same things I did immediately after me (score THREE for emma!).















I had my first piece of fresh Otoro and a couple other pieces of equally expensive in the states tuna. I even had a couple pieces of lightly seared Otoro (look at how fancy I am!). I wanted to try some other things I had never tasted before so I randomly chose some things from the menu. I particularly ordered the "Horse Clam" expecting it to be part of these really obscene clams that I kept seeing but it was much less horrifying and much more tasty than I was anticipating.














I'm still trying to figure out how to describe sushi/sashimi/'carpaccio' flavors so that I could better put this into words. I do love clam sushi though, it is really tasty. It's a little tough but has such a nice smooth flavor. The sushi chef was really fantastic, he even advised me when to soy sauce and when not to (as I obviously had no clue). I also tried this really bizarre "squilla" which seems to be this fancy prawn but wasn't too my liking. It was very tough and not very flavorful. I'm sorta assuming that it might be what these weirdo expensive shrimp are, but I have absolutely no idea. I finally had fresh sweet shrimp and they were heavenly. After I left and paid up (to a whopping 2553 Yen which, for what I ordered (12 pieces, 3 Otoro) is really reasonable) I decided to wander around the more commercial part of the market.














I couldn't capture all of this awesome in photos but I'll try to show some of them. Highlights included seeing giant shaving machines in process of making the flecks of bonito that wave in the heat on yakisoba(obviously among other things). There was the obligatory old lady who I assume makes all her mochi selling weirdo mochi that I bought. I haven't photographed it yet, but I will. It's still sitting in a bag on my bed (maaaybe not the best policy). There was also the required for market old lady who made all of her onigiri with weird flavors. I did not succumb to my love of onigiri (good thing, or I would have never otoro'd)














I also got suckered into purchasing some delicious green tea from this guy 'cause there was a funny looking old man on one of the packages and the store was really nicely set up. I am a tremendous sucker for presentation. And I LOVE Japanese presentation. SO much stuff everywhere! How could you ever get bored? And that is the problem with my presentations, they are often just like this (and this was a comment from the judges of the scholarship). I don't find it a problem, obviously, or mochi lady would never be able to sucker me in!















I snapped some early morning train folks and now I feel just like they do.
I'll try to be good about these blog updates for my trip to Japan so you all can actually live vicariously through me. Please click the links as they are to my photos of what I ate etc.