Our last day in Japan was action-packed. We wanted to make the most of our remaining time Tokyo, which is such an amazing city it is a crime to waste even one minute here. So we were up and running early today, knowing we had to be back at our hotel by 3:00 to leave for the airport.
Our first stop was the Tsukiji Fish Market, the largest fish market in the world. Ninety percent of Tokyo's seafood passes through this market on a daily basis. It was interesting to see this place in action and to see the variety of seafood they deal in. The one downside? The largest fish market in the world also equals the largest fish smell in the world. It wasn't super stinky, per se, but you definitely couldn't mistake where you were. From at least two blocks away.
There has always been one reason and one reason alone I've really wanted to come to Japan. Sakura. We've been fortunate to be in Japan at this time of year. It is cherry blossom (sakura) season and we managed to time our trip just right. The sakura started blooming a couple of days before we arrived, and by the end of our trip, they had reached their peak in Tokyo. We had seen the sakura trees blooming all over Tokyo, but usually just a few trees here or there. There was no way I was leaving Japan without seeing the sakura on a large scale, so after the fish market we headed to the west side of the imperial palace grounds for some sakura viewing. Sakura are a huge deal here. Everyone loves them. There are huge sakura viewing parties in parks all over the city where people just come and spread out their blankets, have a picnic and sit back and drink in the exquisiteness. And the Japanese not only love Sakura for their beauty, but interestingly enough, for their flavor. At this time of year the stores are loaded with sakura-flavored teas, jams, crackers, candies and pastries. If you can add sakura to it, the Japanese are all over it. Evidently the flavor is sweet and delicate. Jill tried some sakura crackers and said they were surprisingly good.
Here are some pictures from our walk near the imperial palace. It was so breathtakingly beautiful, the pictures just can't do it justice.
After our sakura viewing, we had some last-minute shopping to do so we headed out once again to the Nakamise shopping street, one of the overcrowded shopping areas that we had been in at the beginning of our trip. We thought that maybe it would be less crowded, being a Thursday. Boy, were we wrong! It was every bit as crowded as it had been on Saturday, if not more so. It's kind of hard to power shop when you're surrounded by hundreds of people and can barely get near the shops, let alone inside. Let's just say that we were up to the task. We've had to learn how to gently but firmly elbow our way through airports, subway stations and crowded streets. Dangle the opportunity to buy more useless souvenirs in front of us and it's on for sure! After all the crowds that we've been in in Japan, Ashley said that she finally gets why, when we go to places like Disneyland, she is always getting bumped and pushed by the large tour groups from Japan and they never think anything of it. To us here in the States, that behavior is rude. Her new insight, after fighting the crowds of Japan everywhere we went is that in Asia, pushing is not rude, it's necessary. If you want to move, you've got to gently push and bump your way along or you're never going to get anywhere. And no one there thinks anything at all about being pushed or bumped. I can't tell you the number of times I accidentally bumped into someone and turned to apologize and they hadn't even registered the fact that I had bumped them. Such an interesting cultural difference.
We left Nakamise at 2:00, thinking that we'd have plenty of time to make it back to our hotel to load up the bus and be on our way to the airport, but ran into a snag at the subway that forced us to take a different subway line that took us somewhat out of our way, which in turn put us behind. By the time we finally arrived at our station, we nearly had to run the six blocks to our hotel to make the bus to the airport on time. We made it by the skin of our teeth, but hey, if we weren't pushing the limits to eke out every last minute of fun, it just wouldn't be us.
It was a whirlwind trip, but we all had a great time. Our tour guide, Yukiko-san, was very sweet, if a little too quiet and soft-spoken for our group, but she managed to escort us around Japan and show us some amazing sites. Our tour group was fairly nice, too. Overall, a great trip and great memories. Now it's time to rest up and start learning some Vietnamese. We leave for Vietnam in exactly six months and three days! Signing off until then. Sayonara!
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