Shinjuku

I already told you all about Mother's Day in Tokyo which was Day Two so now I will tell you about Day One in Tokyo, which was actually an evening.  We arrived in Tokyo in the evening because we stopped off in Yokohama for a sushi making class that lasted until about 4:30 p.m. We got to eat all our sushi that we made so we weren't really hungry for dinner at that point.  Tokyo is about a 30 minute train ride from Yokohama so we went straight to our hotel and checked in which had a nice view.

We were in the Shiodome area which is a modern, tight cluster of towering high-rise hotels, office buildings and shopping complexes. Our hotel was next to a large Japanese TV station and the view looked straight over at the famous Tsukiji Fish Market that we visited last year during our trip to Japan. (Here's a couple of photos from last year.)

Tsukiji Market is known as one of the world's largest fish markets, handling over 2,000 tons of marine products per day.  It's a huge tourist attraction because of the many kinds of fresh seafood and the busy atmosphere of scooters, trucks, sellers and buyers hurrying around.  One buyer paid a million dollars here for a tuna for his restaurant.  It was more of a publicity stunt to draw attention to his restaurants, so I guess you could say he paid million dollars for advertising.  Now, he has billboards all over town because he's the famous guy who paid a million dollars for tuna at Tsukiju Fish Market.  There are hundreds of eating places around here serving fresh fish, as you can imagine.  

We probably would have gone over there to see it again but it was closed on Sunday and Nick had a full, planned agenda for the next day, Mother's Day.  But the evening was young so we headed out for a night on the town.  Our hotel was connected to the subway station, similarly as last year when we stayed by government buildings in the capitol area.  Subways and trains are always close by and easy to hop and off.  Thankfully, for us we just follow Nick because he always knows where to go. 

  

And where is his first stop?  None other than the busiest train station in the world, Shinjuku Station.  You better know where you're going because there are over 200 exits at this train station.  

On an average day, 3.6 million people pass through the gates at this station and the trains are always packed. 

We walked two miles from the time we got on the train at our hotel to when we walked out into the streets of Shinjuku.  There is just so much walking in the train stations transferring here and there, getting on, getting off, up escalators, down escalators.  It's just on-going.  It's amazing how they move people.  Then when we walked out into the streets, it was again...amazing. 

Shinjuku is what people imagine when you think of Tokyo; bright neon lights, crowds, tall buildings, bustling streets and energy galore.  There aren't a lot of cars, as you notice in the photo since the majority of people take the train.  So, it's not particularly noisy.  And it's clean, no litter at all. Those are the two main differences from our big cities or even Vegas, which is also comparable.  

Nick headed straight to a famous section of Shinjuku that takes you back to Japan post-war era, 1950's Tokyo, called Memory Lane (translated from Omoide Yokocho) but also known as "Piss Alley".  

It really is just a cramped alley full of tiny shops serving up food and drinks that are no bigger than maybe 5-10 seats at the most.  

The name originated from the alley's 1940's black market bars and lack of toilets but it really is not dirty and decrepit as the name suggests.  

We walked through the alley a couple of times because Nick was looking for a spot to sit down so we could get a bite to eat.  It was getting late and our sushi dinner had wore off.  

We were in luck and found three spots at a restaurant so small we were bellied up to the counter with our back against the wall.  

Most places were serving grilled meats on skewers and some other things that we couldn't tell what they were.   

Nick knew immediately what to order and started ordering a variety of skewers. 

The grilled vegetables were good but those gristle parts of the chicken shoulder, not so much.  Nick and the Japanese love them.  I guess that's why the Japanese have such good joints since all that gristle is basically pure collagen.

How about some quail eggs?

I prefer the regular chicken or pork meat for my protein source. 

We enjoyed some local beer that really hit the spot here in Piss Alley.  We had also walked through an area called Golden Gai that is famous for the over 200 tiny shanty-style bars, clubs and eateries that are squeezed into a network of six narrow alleys, connected by even narrower passageways. (Taking photos and videos on the street is prohibited)  But we got the idea about how Shinjuku is a very hoppin' place.  Cheers to our evening in Shinjuku.