Tsukiji Fish Market, Making Sushi, & Asakusa

When this post goes live I should be at the airport flying out of Japan and to Hong Kong. I say should because as I write this there is a typhoon on its way and they’re not sure if it will make landfall/hit Tokyo or not between Wednesday and Thursday. I’m hoping it stays out at sea because I don’t want it to ruin my travel plans!

Today’s post is about what I did on Monday which was take a tour through the Tsukiji Fish Market, take a sushi class, and walk around Asakusa – a large open-air market.

We were supposed to meet our guide from ABC Cooking Studio at 12:30 to go through the market and then take a sushi class for lunch. We went early to make sure we knew where to meet and then walked around a bit. The meeting point was the steps to a large Buddhist temple, Tsukiji Hongan-ji, near the market.

Our guide’s name was Naomi and she was so nice. She even brought us ice packs to keep cool in the sweltering heat! I learned a lot of stuff at the market that day like the way the Japanese cook certain ingredients, seafood, the fish auctions etc. I also tried sea urchin for the first time!

I also learned that the fish market is temporarily moved to indoor facilities in the area and will be permanently moving this fall because the old market is so old now and has no air conditioning. Here is the old building below.

While walking around the market we bought some things like wasabi pistachios, seaweed chips, etc.

After a really interesting time around the market, we made a stop at a local Shinto shrine., Namiyoke Inara Jina. We, then, took the bus over to the Marunouchi section of Tokyo for our cooking class. The class was a lot of fun. We made egg omelets, sushi rolls that had crab, cucumber, mushroom, and the egg omelet inside. We then made sushi with salmon, tuna, and cucumbers. Our teacher was so nice and she looked exactly like Chriselle Lim, if you follow her on Instagram or her blog!

My food turned out pretty good if I do say so myself!

After class we took the subway over to Asakusa – another neighborhood of Tokyo, the city is huge! Asakusa has a big open-air market that leads to another temple. We didn’t visit the temple but definitely browsed the shops and bought things like black pepper crackers and other snacks to bring home.

The market was really cool and I bet it looks awesome at night! By the way, in regards to the picture directly above, I think I need to make a career out of taking photos with unsuspecting women in kimonos!

We then went back to the hotel to recuperate a bit from the heat. The day was a pretty easy-going day, but we did a lot of walking and I was still wiped out from Kyoto. We went for a walk outside the hotel to look at some nearby stores and then went to a Yakitori place for dinner. All I’ll say is it was much better than expected and I will be going in to detail when I do my Japan food diary post soon.

I can’t believe I’ve already been in Japan for a week and I’m already leaving! I really love it here. The people are so nice and everything is incredibly clean, efficient, and modern. I would definitely come back!