31th Tokyo day 2 – Fish markets and poisonous fish

One place my guidebook recommended was the Tokyo fish market, a huge place where apparently 10% of all Japanese seafood is bought and sold (and the Japanese love their seafood!) We tried to get there early but didn't manage that, arrived late morning when it was mostly closed up, however the scale was still amazing to see and the nearby market was filled with fresh seafood, Mina was very keen to try a very expensive cut of fish, one of the best, from a street vendor there offering a very good price. We took a chance and bought it (for around 8gbp) and tried it, it was nice in flavor but was a bit more chewy than I would have liked. After this we walked around the area and found a recommded place to eat puffer fish. Despite puffer fish being out of season you can still get it in some specialized restaurants, and it was on my list of things to try! We ordered it among a few other dishes, and it arrived prepared in a few different ways, the traditional way is very thin shashimi, raw slices of puffer fish flesh, and that was nice, nothing hugely special. Perhaps in season, or highly expensive versions, are hugely tasty but I think I still prefer salmon sashimi with extra wasabi!

We then walked through another beautiful miniature garden and found a very famous shrine that is very infamous in asia as commemorating all Japanese war dead, including many convicted war criminals, it was interesting to see and is very near a giant military museum. We walked through there to take a look and it was also interesting, with one of the most shocking being an example of a suicide submarine, just big enough for one crew member to pilot and try to blow up taking an enemy ship with him, they also had photos of Japanese war dead, a huge room and corridor covered floor to ceiling with small photos, very moving.

Then we recovered with some retail therapy, I may have accidentally bought a Macbook I had my eye on… for a very good price, and we had good fun wandering around the electronic markets and buying some cool technology!
One odd thing was the 'maid bars' that are everywhere, with girls in French maid uniforms working there, you can go and drink with them, much like a hostess bar, and chat with them, but nothing more, a bit strange, but so so popular, I however didn't take advantage of this unique experience!