TacoCat’s Travels #113 (Japan 5.0: Tokyo): Getting Fishy in Tsukiji! 🍣

June 2021 · 6 min read · Chuo

Hey Hive!

If you missed the post last week, we began a new journey through Japan with my family and Sean, starting from Tokyo! Since we've been here before but it's my relatives' first time we had to bring them to all the popular spots we visited previously already, but it's all good.

So at the end of the last post, I eluded to our favourite bakery, which is actually located in a convenience store called Daily Yamazaki! Only certain branches have a bakery section called Daily Hot and they have one of the best breads I've ever had!

So the next morning, before everyone else woke up we made our way back here to get our favourite breakfast!

There were these beautiful trees with yellow leaves I couldn't help taking a photo! We've never seen Japan in autumn before so this was probably the closest that we've ever come to seeing an autumn scenery ever.

So this is our favourite breakfast! Thicc toast with cheese and a sunny side up egg in the middle and bacon slices in the corner!

We were so excited to buy them!

And here's what the bread looks like close-up!

We bought 3 slices back and the bread was nice and warm so we couldn't wait to eat it and starting monching on one slice on the way back to the hotel!

It was such a nice day out! The sky was so blue and cloudless.

On the way back we found this cute gachapon machine! We actually own the bigger versions of the brown bear so I just had to get these small ones! They're so adorable!

After we had our delicious breakfast and met up with everyone, it was time to head to the train station! And we introduced them to the female only passenger cars on the train!

If you weren't aware, these Women Only cars have quite a history. As early as 1912, the Tokyo Chuo line introduced these women-only cars in trains to protect female passengers from sexual harassment. After a couple of decades, however, these reserved train cars disappeared in the middle of the twentieth century, but perverts still remained. And after two-thirds of women ages 20-40 reported being touched, the railway companies took action started to designate whole cars for female rush-hour passengers, others all day but only on weekdays, etc. (Source: Japan-experience)

I believe it's only in effect during rush hours though, so the guys were fine boarding here with us.

Our first stop today was Tsukiji! And on the way to the famous fish market, we stopped by this special temple called Tsukiji Hongwanji Temple!

This Buddhist temple had such a unique look compared to other temples we've seen in Japan! Its architecture is clearly inspired by Indian temples.

Since we were at a temple we decided to show my family how to properly partake in chozu (self-cleansing) which is the customary way to clean or purify yourself before making any prayers at shrines or temples in Japan.

We weren't going into the temple itself, but it's a new experience for them to try chozu and they were also interested in the chozuya, which is the large basin with special wooden ladles.

So if you weren't aware, there is a proper procedure for this.

First, you take the ladle in your right hand and scoop up some water to wash your left hand. Be sure not to splash too much, and make sure you pour the water over the side of the basin and not back into it.

Next, change the ladle to your left hand to wash your right. Then hold the ladle in your right again and rinse your mouth with the left.

And lastly, wash the handle of the ladle so that is is clean for the next person's use. Then place the ladle back on the basin, scoop side down.

We tried our best to remember the procedure on the spot since there weren't any instructions. I think other people might've looked at us weird since my mum basically poured the water from the ladle straight into her mouth. woops. I hope people didn't think we were being disrespectful because she laughed after she spilled water on herself. I mean, it was funny though. But we quickly left after that.

Eventually we arrived in the famous Tsukiji fish market!

And as expected, it was crowded af!

It was almost lunchtime so we wanted to bring them to our favourite sushi restaurant - Sushi Zanmai! But of course it had quite a queue, so we had to wait for a bit. Luckily everyone had breakfast so they could wait for a short while. And they also wanted to walk around and look at the shops so this was a good time.

We went walking around, looking at all the different shops. Most of them were selling fresh seafood of course, and some even had chefs slicing it right in front of you! Truly the freshest.

But we also saw a shop selling fruit skewers! It was really tempting, but 4 strawberries for 500yen?? That some steep pricing.

It was pretty difficult to take photos here since it was so crowded and I had to keep track of my family to make sure no one got lost. But half an hour later, we made it back to Sushi Zanmai and got seated!

It was super crowded, and with us being such a big group I thought it'd be hard for us to get seats but thankfully it wasn't too bad!

The menu had English, so we had no problems ordering and man did they order an entire feast! Another perk of traveling with family is that they're the ones paying so we could go all out and order whatever! Sweet!

My mum ordered the Sushi Zanmai special salad:

The chawanmushi:

And 3 different sets of different sushi! Of course I ordered my standard salmon nigiri and Sean's favourite anago sushi as well.

Sorry for the lighting here:

Everyone was super satisfied after that meal! The fish was super fresh as usual and absolutely delicious!

My mum bought some strawberries from one of the fruit shops and we ended up sharing them out on the street after our meal. She has a habit of eating fruits after every big meal so it made sense. And anyway the strawberries were so juicy and yummy too!

After that we started making our way towards Ginza, passing by the famous traditional Kabuki theater - Kabukiza!

I also came across this very cute display of knick-knacks and Russian dolls in a shop display and thought it was so cool! What unique and intricate designs!