12 hour days

are not fun. Today some of us got up at 5:00 to go to the most famous fish Market in Japan, Tsukuji. The action there can only be described as organized chaos, and is best shown in pictures. I saw 1000$ whole Tuna, and tiny eel. I had uni, also know as sea urchin, and almost got run over by trucks multiple times. That was all before 8:00am.

After that I passed out illegally in a subway for an hour while I waited for the seminar to actually start. We started at 9:30, and kept walking for the entire day until 5 in 27-30 degree weather with like 60% humidity. Starting from Tsukiji we basically walked all around the city. I have notes on the names of the places we went to, but basically we saw different streetscapes biased on different development practices.

Lunch was intresting. We had Osaka style okonomiyaki and Tokyo style okonomiyaki. I has a different name, but I forget it now. It was amazingly good though. I'll have to learn how to make it when I get home.

One intresting place we went to was Ginza. I didn't remember going there in 2005, but as soon as I saw the Sony store I realized we had dinner here on the second night. The rest of the district looked completely different though. In part it was because we approached from a different angle, but mostly it was because the district had been redeveloped. I looked for the sifi-scape under the train tracks that I remembered so well last time only to find it completely gone, destroyed by high class boutiques. I looked for the little fake Italian Restaurant we ate at on the second day only to find a plaza where it should have been. It was kind of sad. The Sony building was completely different as well. I was shocked.

After that more walking. We ended up in Shinjyuku and the Love Hotel hill. Anyhow that was about the day. Mostly it was crazy hot out and a lot of walking. I'm really tired and don't remember much else. Time for a nap, then because its Saturday here its time to go out!