Fish Market

 You have to see the fish market, Cindy kept telling me. So, we booked an interpreter and a taxi and headed for the Toyosu Market this morning at 4:30. The market is different from Cindy’s visit some 22 years ago with the tuna and swordfish sold in a new and separate facility and an outer market at which the tuna and other sea food have already passed through a chain of wholesalers, intermediate wholesalers, and possibly several other vendors before it is available to consumers.

I will try to take you through the presale and sale process. All of the frozen tuna are laid out on the floor of this massive facility at 3. The bidders (yellow card in hat) and assistance can then examine the fish for two hours to determine which the will bid on. A section in front of the tail has been cut off and this meat and meat at the base can be examined. The buyers use of a pick like gadget to separate a small piece they roll in their hands and may taste. The second video here shows the approach of one bidder who kept samples of the fish on which he wanted to bid.

The auction process appears chaotic as each individual fish is sold in only a few seconds. The auctioneer announces the fish and appears to announce a basic bid. The bidder use hand signals to respond (fingers to offer amount), the auctioneer makes a quick call, and they move on. As soon as a tag to indicate the buyer is slapped on the fish, helpers begin to drag the fish into collections that will be sent to the buyer.

There were a few sushi restaurant in the central facility so we decided to have sushi for breakfast. The upload and download time for this post are getting long so I will provide some images from the outer market in a future post.

TeamLab Visual Arts Museum

 Tokyo’s TeamLab Visual Arts Museum was a Stan Trollip recommendation. He told us he had wanted to visit when he was here, but all the tickets for the day they had open were taken. Cindy booked early so we could have the experience.

The exhibit is an immersive experience set in a labyrinth of dark rooms and random passageways that have projected visual art constantly morphing on the walls, floor and ceiling. There are mirrors and floors I swear moved. Cindy says the floor tilting was a side effect of the visuals. The video/music was captured perfectly by my phone.

 

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Sky Tree Tower

 Our final outing from the boat was a bus ride to see the view from the Tokyo SkyTree Tower.  The ride offered the added benefit of providing a prolonged view of Tokyo and Yokohama at night. The SkyTree is the third tallest tower in the world at 2100 feet and though the four floor observation deck is not located on the top, the view is both very popular and spectacular. There were a large number of people which seems to be the general situation in Tokyo, but with a little patience and four floors there ended up plenty of opportunities for photos. This appeared to be a popular location for amateur glamour photos for young Japanese girls who posed endlessly for their photographers with the distant city in the background. I did take one photo of Cindy, but I am quick with a great deal of experience in glamour shots. Cindy doesn’t use that pouty look that seems to be in among the younger set.

My first impression of Tokyo is that it is dense. Great industrial buildings, massive apartment buildings, and lots of people all packed closely together. You may have seen that view of a multiple directional crosswalk containing nearly a thousand people moving through each other every time the light changes. I have my own version of that shot. Not at the same locations, but just a cross walk we used today. It was raining and a large number of folks were emerging from a train boarding site. As each individual hit the street, he or she opened an umbrella. Watching the nearly perfect repetition of this simple process was very interesting. Then the procession began to pile up at the light to cross the street - both sides. Walking into the group walking toward you was like moving through a wall of umbrellas - most it seemed at my eye level.

Sapporo

 Apologies for my lack of attention to the blog. I continue to struggle with my sinus infection/cold and the prolonged coughing fits have made it very difficult to sleep leading to exhaustion. Two trips to the medic so far with several different remedies attempted. It seems to be improving a bit. Cindy has a weaker version for which I am likely responsible and hopefully she will respond better than me. We are soon off the boat with more to deal with.

We did walk around Sapporo a bit. I skipped the four hour tour, but tolerated a slow walk pretty well. Sapporo (yes the home of Sapporo beer) is much quieter than the locations we will soon visit. We found a machine to exchange money because many smaller locations do not take credit cards. A few photos follow.

Cindy has purchased eSIMS for our phones so we can find our way around and use the translation apps. Text translation has been available for some time, but it is the translation of a visual input that I find very impressive. Cindy created two screen captures from her phone to show how this works. Google Translate is the app.

Cindy puts up with my humor when she is often the target of my photos. She made me add this photo. She sent it some folks who we sometimes travel with and know what I like to target in my photos. She calls the picture - Mark works hard to find a way to take a picture without people.