Sumo, Karaoke and Gigantic Tuna

While sumo tournaments only happen three times a year in Tokyo, we were able to go and watch them at a morning practice at the Araisho stable- a short metro ride from our hostel.
They practice in a room with windows on to the street. There is a barrier of bikes between the public and the windows- but we were pretty darn close to them and could see their sweat and hear their grunts.  The room they were practicing in had a dirt floor with a rope making a circle on the floor.  They seemed to alternate between strength training- pushing each other around in the ring- and practice matches where they would try to force one another outside the rope on the floor.

Nihobashi bridge

We heard about this at the Edo Tokyo museum which was a great museum where we learned a lot about Japanese history in the Edo period which ended in 1868. The thing about Tokyo is that practically the whole city was destroyed by bombs during WWII. Thus I liked that The museum had really elaborate life sized models of historic buildings and the historically significant Nihobashi bridge that were destroyed in the war. During the Edo period, when Tokyo was known as "Edo," the Nihobashi bridge was the center of the city and the beginning of the main district of the city in the era when the Samurai from all the districts would gather together there. It is still considered the "zero kilometer of Tokyo." It was right by the Tokyo station and our train to Kyoto so we stopped by to take some pictures before saying good bye to tokyo.

Our guide, Yamamoto, at the Edo Tokyo Museum. An 80+ man with lots of wisdom.

Us with the Nihobashi bridge before heading to Kyoto.

Our last night in Tokyo and we still had one thing on our list of things we wanted to do- karaoke! We found a place in Shibuya, not far from the crossing.  Before we could think twice we walked in and wrote our names on a waiting list. It was going to be $650 yen for half hour per person and unlimited drinks. You could rent a room for up to 5 hours, but we just wanted a small taste so we were gonna sing our hearts out in 30 minutes. Sounded good to us! While we were waiting we saw big groups of people enter and also some couples and pairs if friends. When it was our turn they gave us our room number and we proceed to our room one floor up which turned out to be more like a restaurant booth with walls. There was a tv, a stereo, two microphones and a tablet to make your song selections. We picked up the tablet and everything was in Japanese! Oops! When the attendant came with our drink, she helped us switch it to English. So after 30 pretty frantic min we got about 5 songs we wanted, 2 songs we accidentally selected about Tokyo, and four drinks in, not bad! The attendant came and asked if we wanted to extend another 30 min. It was tempting.... but we left...and left our karaoke experience - short and sweet.

The check-in desk at the Karaoke place.  On the right is an advertisement for some  drink to help you sing better.

The doors to the “singing booths."

Our singing booth.

Words to a song called “Tokyo"

Tsukiji fish market

According to every travel guide on Tokyo, this is a must see market. Some go to the 5am tuna auction but we heard that if you go after the auction, but still early, around 7am or 8am, you can see the winners cutting storing their gigantic tuna. We saw huge tuna- like probably as tall as me- beautiful shades of red being cut with the largest knives I've ever seen- as well as lots of other alien like creatures from the sea.  After our little tour of the market we went to the outer rim of the market to look for a sushi place where we could try some of that amazing looking tuna we saw inside. There were several with pretty long lines and some with no line at all. We picked one with a medium sized line and a picture menu and hoped for the best. We gave our order to a waiter outside and when we sat down, our meal was prepared and set before us. It was delicious!