Tokyo like a Native

Friday was a very special day for us here in Tokyo, as we met Keiko, our guide and host for a morning visit to Tsukiji Fish Market and a homemade sushi lunch. The fish market is a huge area of specialty seafood stalls both for fresh and prepared seafood. Joined by throngs of tourists and locals, we walked up and down the aisles with Keiko pointing out a wide variety of seafood, vegetables and other food items that we’d not seen or tasted before. Along the way, we shopped for our lunch ingredients — tuna, salmon, mackerel, yellowtail, wasabi root, tamagoyaki and more. We also stopped to taste sea urchin, served fresh from the shell, and fried burdock.

After shopping, Keiko took us on the train back to her home neighborhood. On the walk to her house, we passed the cutest school classes of 3-year-olds walking hand-in-hand in a line down the sidewalk. We also peeked in the window of a rice-seller, separating the hull and the bran from the white rice inside. Keiko explained that this fresh rice is the tastiest.

Our sushi-making lesson was so much fun! Keiko had us grating wasabi root using a special grating tool made of wood and sharkskin. We made sushi rice and then shaped it for nigiri and maki. 

When everything was ready, we all sat down for a delicious lunch and good conversation. Keiko told us that when she and her husband were younger, they and their three girls lived in Winnetka, near Chicago. She was also very impressed that we have Shohei Ohtani on the California Angels baseball team, as he’s worshipped as much (probably more?) here in Japan as he is in the US.

We said goodbye to Keiko and spent the afternoon in Ueno Park at the Cherry Blossom festival, visiting a few more old Shinto shrines and a Buddhist temple. Then is was back to the hotel just as the rain got heavy. In the evening, a walk to the izikaya alley for beer and bbq.

Next stop: Kiso Fukushima