When I first visited the Tsukiji Fish Market in 2015, they were located near more warehouses and had daily fish market auctions if you were able to get up at the crack of dawn, e.g. 5 am. Nowadays, the Tsujiki Fish Market is much more expanded with the Tsukiji Outer Market and opens until the early afternoon.
The Tsukiji Outer Market is still close to the warehouses. Some of the restaurants open from 5:00 am in the morning. The Tsukiji Outer Market has to a morning adventure, otherwise you will out on the busiest times. I recommend trying some sushi for breakfast or lunch at one of the local restaurants.
If you are an early bird, you will find that neighboring Ginza area doesn’t wake until closer to 11 am or 12 pm. If you want something to do, head over to bustling Tsukiji for some interesting scenes.
When I was at the Tsukiji Outer Market, it was crowded and booming with excited from locals and visitors. There were plenty of stalls set up serving some delicious fresh seafood. There are plenty of options for you to consider.
Many of the options can be expensive. You will also notice that many of the menus are similar to each other. See the sign board below for typical costs of dishes in the area.
Tsukiji is definitely not a cheap place to find food, but at least in many cases you will be served some freshly caught seafood.
From Tsukiji, we headed to Mikata Station on the other side of Tokyo. In Mikata is the Ghibli Museum. To get access to the Ghibli Museum, you need to reserve your tickets in advance. You can purchase the tickets by either going to a local konbini in Japan or otherwise there are authorised ticket sellers. For us, in Australia we bought our tickets from JTB in Melbourne.
The Ghibli Museum is very scenic. You are greeted to Totoro looking out from a window. The walls of the building is covered in green facade. The facade was well kempt and made the place look incredibly fantastical.
Unfortunately, you can’t take photos or videos inside the museum. You are allowed to film or capture anything outside.
Inside, we were able to explore many different rooms to see how Miyazaki Hayao created many of his masterpieces. You will see and walk through a set up of his work room in the early days. Plus there are an assortment of things on the walls to see and plenty of interactive things to play with. Of course, the whole museum is super kid friendly.
If you time your visit well, you can also join the queue to watch a short film that can only be seen at the museum. The short film changes every so often.
The rooftop of the museum is host to a garden with many props to look at and admire.
We headed to Shibuya later in the afternoon. Shibuya is a bustling area in Tokyo. There are so many intricate and interesting things to see from various nooks and crannies. For instance, this mirror wall was close to the train station and was really interesting to walk past.
Very close to Shibuya Station is Shibuya 109, which is a multilevel shopping complex selling various Japanese labels for females. It’s a popular shopping complex and each time I come with my better half, it is always packed. Look out for the sale periods, because you can find some incredibly deals.
If you want to find male clothing, you will be out of luck. There are some clothes, but Shibuya 109 Mens is now Magnet by Shibuya 109. The building used to host a lot of mens clothing, but there now more non-clothing stores. For example, you will be able to find a Joypolis, an arcade, and Mugiwara Store, One Piece anime/manga store. I didn’t mind the change, but when I was here in 2015, there was much more focus on unique mens clothing lines.
In the photo below is the famous Shibuya Crossing. When the pedestrian light goes green, you will see a human wave of people moving in every direction. The best place to see the action is from the windows (see in the photo) from the Shibuya Train Station.
The Mugiwara Store is a store for One Piece fans. It’s a great place to find One Piece decorated things.
There are plenty of One Piece plush toys and figurines.
The store is also decked out with displays. Many displays showcase some memorable moments from the hit anime.
If you are interested, I have captured a video of me going through the store.
We had tsukemen ramen for lunch. Tsukemen ramen is essentially dipping noodles. You dip the noodles into the thick broth and slurp away at the delicious textured noodles and the rich broth. It seems counter to have the noodles and soup separate, but trust me, a good joint will make you think this was a really smart idea. We just got our tsukemen from a local restaurant along the street. They did a great job.
In the late afternoon, we visited Roppongi Hills. We visited the large shopping complex there.
We came across the Attack on Titan exhibition. There were huge lines to get in.
Luckily, if you wanted to buy anything, you could buy things related to the exhibition outside the ticket booth.
At night, we decided to have Lotteria, which is a fast food chain in Japan. We had their beef or pork patties were really delicious. It had a nice peppery taste to it, that I never tried before. I would go back again if I visit Japan.
Next time Day 19 – Tokyo – 7 July 2019 – teamLab Borderless in Odaiba, Diver City, lunch at Iron Chef Michiba’s restaurant in Ginza and luxurious hotel stay at the Grand Prince Hotel Takanawa Hanakohro for our final night.
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