One of the early mornings here, we took a walk to the fish market. Its the biggest fish market I have ever seen, Pike's place market looks like a tiny sample before this . The people moved around stuff within the market on these cool little vehicle thingies, quite innovative I must admit. We saw a lot of the sea creatures, many alive, some frozen, some being sliced ... pretty much all the phases it goes through after it is caught and before it reaches our plates. There was a guy cutting huge blocks of ice and sending up this machinery where it would go in and come out crushed. People would come on their vehicle thingies to buy crushed ice. I was staring at these shrimps moving in the little tank they were in, when the seller smiled and in what seemed like a gesture to help me see/photograph, pulled a shrimp out of the water and pointed at me. My knee jerk reaction was not appreciation but a loud scream seeing the shrimp wriggle for its life. He ofcourse immediately put the shrimp back into water and stepped back. Oh well :-(

We had japanese breakfast outside the market. The fish doesn't get much fresher. And bingo, I tried raw fish for the first time!! Just so randomly, just like that. I am also trying to eat with chopsticks. So far so good.
 
I often struggle finding  petite sections in stores in the US when buying clothes. Ever been in a situation where you love the clothes but they are almost always a larger size? Here while trying slippers on, my feet felt most comfortable in the LL size which is probably a double large or extra large equivalent. I am guessing that buying clothes here may be a fun experience. The japanese girls are so petite. I may be a large after all
 
I love all the expressions and the giggles. People are very friendly. Many go out of their way to help. I asked this girl which train I needed to take to go some place and she stared at the map for a few seconds, asked me to wait, ran and came back with somebody who spoke a little english. Similarly Roshan asked some guy if he knew of a laundromat close by, after some communication struggle the guy called his friend on his phone and Rosh talked to the guy on phone.
 
We visited Akihabara, the elctronic city which besides electronics has lots of japanese porn, comics, dvds etc. Women dressed in kimonos and school girl clothese were handing out flyers on the sidewalk. We also visited Shinjuku (sort of like Times square) and Ginza - they have huge shopping areas and a variety of pubs and restaurants. Lots of people. I noticed very few couples though. Most were by themselves or few guys togther and few girls together. I proably have seen 3 young couples holding hands (and no PDA) and walking so far. People in Tokyo are probably too busy to date. There is a vending machine for almost everything - drinks, food, cigarrette, dvds, posters, t-shirts ... Rosh and I wanted to watch sumo wrestling in Japan, but its not happening in Tokyo at the time we are here :-(. I hope we get to catch a geisha performance in Kyoto. I got to see Kendo, it was pretty cool.

Pachinko is some game that a lot of the middle aged men seem completely engrossed in. I have seen 3 pachinko places so far and people are so intently playing, I have no idea how its played and why its so interesting. The only equivalent I know is how some of the older people spend hours on slot machines in Vegas. If I knew the game, I probably would only play and do nothing else while in Japan (I get hooked on to games easily), so may be I wont find out.
 
I love Tokyo! (Few pics on http://www.flickr.com/photos/dolly/sets/72157621763892903/)