Day One in Japan: Part I, Fish Market.

Technically my first day in Japan was Friday but since I had just spent 13 hours on a plane and didn't get to the hotel until 7PM, we'll call Saturday my first day.

Our itinerary was pretty aggresive because we only had a few days in Tokyo and there was a lot to see. Day one includeed the Tokyo Fish market, Kabuki-Za Theater, searching for Mini-Z parts and trying to find the Mini-z track. We got an early start because the action at the fish market starts at 5:00 AM. It wasn't too difficult for me to get going because I was excited to see Tokyo and we *were* 13 hours ahead of Virginia time. Little did I know that I would be waking up at 5:30 AM for the next couple of days.

Well we got up and moving around 6:00 to try and catch the bulk of the activity at the market (reported to be between 7 and 9 AM) .From what I understand, large quantities of fish are brought into Tokyo bay every morning (except Sunday) and licensed individuals are allowed to view the fish and bid in the auctions. Once the auction is over people are shuttling around with small pallet cars loaded with fish and ice. They are either taking the fish to their "booth" for public sale or loading small cargo trucks to be taken somewhere else in Japan.

We got to the market around 7 or 7:30 and it was son onf the most surreal things we had eeveer seen. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.





Sea Urchins...I think you eat the gonads.








All of the tuna that's brought in from other countries is shipped frozen. They use these huge band saws to cut the fish.

And how do you cut fresh fish that can grow up to 3 meters...you use a meter-long knife!


Nothing like a little sushi for breakfast. No joke, it's 8:30 in the morning and we are eating raw fish...delicious!





The one thing that sketched us out a little bit is that there was a huge line at one place and
no wait for the place we chose. We just thought maybe it was famous or something...like the Sushi nazi.

Why do I do this to myself?

Do you ever make bad decisions and know that they are bad while you are making them, but continue to make them anyway?

So, I am flying out for Japan at 6 AM on Thursday morning. I figure I should start settling into an earlier wakeup schedule (currently~9AM) so it doesn't hurt so bad on Thursday. Well I was hangin gout last night (Sunday) and I went home around 10:00. When I got home, I called a friend of mine to settle riding plans for the next day and he mentioned that he was playing poker with a couple of folks and they would be playing for another hour or so...

Mistake 1:

Getting in the car to go play poker.

So I played for about an hour and two of the players left (and I should have too), but I decided to stick around for another short round.

Mistake 2: Not going home at 11:45.

By the time I got home, it was 1:30AM and I was nowhere near my goal of getting up at 7:00 with a decent night's sleep. So now it's Monday, and I am tired. Maybe I'll make some better decisions today.

Don't Buy a Cheap Shredder

I found a great deal on a shredder at Staples. It had a $25 rebate which made it something like 15 or 20 bucks. We don't have a whole lot of stuff that's shred-worthy so I figured it would be adequate.

The problem is that it only has a 7 sheet capacity. So your limit is basically one envelope with two tri-folded sheets of paper. I don't know the last time my phone bill only had two sheets of paper in it. You could certainly unfold the sheets and shred a coupel at a time but that's no faster than just ripping them up. The point is, we pushed our shredder to its (very meager) limits. I didn't realize this until this morning when I tried to shred a single sheet of paper and it wouldn't chew it up. I figured it was just a little jammed. When I unplugged it and started to pull the paper wads out I saw that a bunch of the center blades were completely mangled. If you look closely you can see that some of the plastic fins are completely gone or mushed and the blades are all chewed up.


This thing is toast.

Moral:
If you really do want to get a shredder, spend a couple of bucks, or be prepared to shred your credit card statements one sheet at a time.

Stoked about Japan

My wife is currently in Japan studying under an NSF grant that has her there for 10 weeks. I kind of missed the boat on her South America trip, but I planned a little earlier and lined some things up so that I was able to take some time and get a ticket to the motherland.*

J and I have been bouncing some ideas back and forth and it's going to be time to make some concrete plans very soon. If you haven't seen her blog you are missing out. It's much better than this one!

So far the ideas on the table are...
1 Visit Hokkaido. One of the four main islands of Japan. It's the Northenmost island and it supposed to be a natural wonderland
2 Tokyo. I have to track down some Mini-Z tracks and hard to find parts.
3 Sumo Wrestling Tournament
4 MTB Race. It turns out there is a Mountain Bike Race a couple of days after I land in Japan. I won't be bringing a bike out there but Johanna might race it. Although, it would be pretty cool a couple of years from now to be able to say "Yeah...well, back when I was racing in Japan..."

I'll be doing my best to keep everyone updated on my travels. I don't think I am going to bring my computer so it may be tough. This may be a good time for that Mini-disc recorder that I bought...and still haven't used. I will also keep everyone posted as the plans develop.

*When I say "motherland" I am not speaking of the roots of my people. I am referring to the birthplace of the Mini-Z. Defintely my number 1 hobby/addiction at the moment.