Sightseeing in Tokyo: Tsukiji Fish Market and Shopping in Odaiba

After having spent three weeks in Seoul following Yonsei University's intensive course in Korean I headed to Tokyo again for an interview that had been scheduled to take place during the last week of February.
I spent almost a week in Tokyo this time, and this time I had the chance to meet up with my German friend Silke who lived in the same dorm as me during my first semester in Kyoto. I guess it has been two years since last time I saw her.. Time sure flies!!

The entrance to うまい鮨勘

On Saturday Yuma and I had been planning to visit the Sky Tree, something we have been talking about doing ever since the building opened. This time it was the wind that stopped us: apparently one can't go ll the way to the top on days when it blows a lot, so we decided to save the trip for another occasion. Instead we took the trip down to Tsukiji, where Tokyo's well known fish market lies.

Cute glasses with sushi illustrations

Arriving there at noon we walked around for a while looking at the different fish-serving restaurants that was in the area. But although there were quite a large number of them they all seemed to have pretty long queues of potential guests too, despite the rather high prices for most of them. After having walked around the area for a little while we decided upon a restaurant called Umai Sushikan (うまい鮨勘) that seemed to have a pretty good menu, and not too many people lined up in front of it.

It was a nice and spacious restaurant in comparison to the other ones we had walked by (which might explain while the queue was relatively short), and we both got very delicious looking food. Along with the food we ordered they also included free miso-soup, which one could get free refills with as well! I was quite impressed by that, as free refills aren't too common in Japan.
The atmosphere of the restaurant was also quite nice; you could watch the sushi-chefs at work or just admire the fancy sushi-clocks hanging on the wall. For those out there who are really adventurous (or...?) they were also having whale meat on the menu..!
*Address:
うまい鮨勘 築地市場店

東京都中央区築地５丁目２−１

うまい鮨勘!

People had to wait in line in front of the restaurant

A sushi-clock!

Sushi chefs in action

Next was time for a little trip to Odaiba, which is known as a kind of hot-spots for couples (especially the ones who likes shopping). We checked out the Japanese version of the Statue of Liberty there, and came to the conclusion that it definitively would be better to see the real one in New York, and that we also both would prefer to live close to the harbor in Yokohama. Anyway, we wandered around in the big shopping centers there for a couple of hours without actually buying anything. Yuma insisted that he had just had his payday and that he would buy me something if I wanted to, but I'm really not that interested in buying things just for the sake of buying things so in the end I didn't buy anything and neither did he. For me spending the day in good company was the best about our shopping trip, as the centers usually is the same old rush of people running around harvesting objects they don't really need. As always. I'll rather save up the money and use it to buy my next plane ticket to some exotic destination (spoiler: I'll visit Norway in August!!)
But now I'm on my way back to my school in Korea, ready for my second semester to start. So for now, the most exotic thing I'll see in the near future will be the forest surrounding Kyunghee University's GIP campus and the inside of the meditation room every morning at 7 am..

The Japanese version of the Statue of Liberty

Inside the shopping mall at Odaiba

About Anette
Anette came to Japan as an exchange student in 2010, met the love of her life and got stuck. From her base in Tokyo she writes about her experiences as a full-time worker in Tokyo and about her travels in Japan and abroad. She's a free-spirited adventurer who enjoys both the great outdoors and her urban lifestyle.