Our final meal in Tokyo did not compare favourably to the culinary highlights we’d experienced there. We wanted a quick bite before we got on the Shinkansen to Nagoya, so we headed to MOS Burger. Holly’s choice of a Yakiniku Rice Burger turned out to not be a burger containing rice, but a burger made of rice. It fell apart as soon as she attempted to pick it up – who’d have thought rice wasn’t a suitable substitute for bread rolls?
When today started neither of us knew much about Sumo. After a few hours of watching it we’re not really any the wiser on most of the rule or rituals. I could try and explain some parts vaguely, but you’d be better off looking it up on Wikipedia instead.
It’s our fourth day in Tokyo, and so far the best way I can describe it is like an Easter Show taking place in a massive airport. Train stations and shopping centres are made up of long corridors filled with people. On the streets, cars are outnumbered by people, who are outnumbered by neon lights.
Since we’re on holidays in a country that doesn’t wake up until lunch, we figured, why not get up at 4am and see what’s going on then?
Well, for starters, the nearby okonomiyaki establishment known as the “Big Pig” was still open, so that’s good to know for future reference. Not much else seemed to be happening though, so we thought we’d go down to Tsukiji and see where the action was.
Today has been a bit of a nothing day: we travelled from Kanazawa to Tokyo on a weekend preceding a series of public holidays, so the whole country is travelling and we had to have a couple of tries before we could find a train with seats available (thanks to Sim who managed to figure out how to tell on the Japanese website whether the trains were booked out or not). Most of the day was spent on trains, so we haven’t really done much at either end. Accordingly, I thought that instead of describing the day, I’d take the opportunity to discuss a subject very close to my heart.