Yesterday I flew out of Tokyo to Beijing after my first trip to Japan. The trip was a three day event focused on meeting potentially key eCoupled customers. At the same time, the Wireless Power Consortium was meeting, so many coworkers were also on travel for that reason.
It snowed a few days prior to our arrival and as a result, the air was drier than usual, allowing us to see Mt. Fuji from the hotel. Apparently the ability to see the mountain from Tokyo is rather rare.
Mt. Fuji in the distance.
On day 1 we took the train from Tokyo to Osaka. This was about a two and a half hour train ride, on a very fast train. The alternative was flying, but by the time you get to the airport, mess with boarding and get out of the airport, there’s just no point. Fred and Mike were guiding us, and they knew all the details of ticketing etc. so things went smoothly.
One of the pictures I captured of the bullet-train over Tom’s shoulder.
On our trian ride, we went closer to Mt. Fuji. The down side was that I was then trying to take pictures at 150mph.
Mt. Fuji, closer.
The garden as seen from my room above.
Same garden at night.
On day 3, they day we were leaving, we woke up in the wee hours of the morning (3am) to go to the Tokyo fish market and tuna auction. I took a bunch of pictures, but none of them can capture how huge and busy this was. There were several city blocks packed with people selling everything you could possibly pull from the ocean. In addition, there was a huge warehouse area where the tuna were being inspected and later auctioned off. And, to think, this goes on every day of the week with the exception of Sunday.
A chopped off fish head, one of the first things we saw upon walking in.
Red fish (blue fish?).
Squid.
The tuna, deep frozen and out for inspection. This doesn’t even close to capture the vastness of the tuna area.
Octopus on ice.
Bandsawing the fish in to salable chunks.
If you’re going to cut up fish, you’re going to need knives.
Last, but not least, Tom did find a Tokyo meathook.
I am never, ever going to mess with Tom again. Did he buy that hook? He looks eerily happy. By the way, love the name of the blog…
Tom didn’t buy the hook. If you haven’t heard, you should have him explain why it’s smirk-worthy next time you meet.
In hindsight, I should have bought a knife. It would have been an excellent souvenir, and I had to check luggage anyway.
Pingback: Mt. Fuji - The Norconk