Day 4: Fish, parks and electronics

Saturday February 26th, 2011 by John van Weerdenburg

Today we had some program changes. Instead of Sensoji we went to Tsukiji Market. Since we would not dare to wake the participants at 4 AM, we arrived at 7.15 AM at the market, which is relatively late. As good students we completely missed the sign that should have told us that tourist are not allowed in that part of the market before 9AM. The whole sale market of 230,000 square meters was built up of small stands with narrow paths between them. During the logistic operation of transporting fish around the market, these paths seemed more like a race track for small transport carts. After a walk around this market it was time to taste some fish. This seafood was extremely fresh and so had a taste that was much better than what we are used to.

After this refreshing breakfast we walked to Hamarikyu gardens. This park near the Tsukiji market is famous for the contrast between the peaceful plains of the park with the skyscrapers of the Ginza district in the background. This gave the photographers in the group some interesting subjects to work their tools on. In the center of the park there was a teahouse where participants had the chance to experience a traditional tea ceremony.

From Hamarikyu we took the metro to the next venue: Ueno Park. At the entrance of the park participants were free to visit the areas that they wanted. Most of them walked right into a street with lots of small restaurants for a quick lunch. On their way through the park, participants had the choice to enter one of the five museums or the zoo.

The last part of this busy day was a visit to Akihabara. This district of Tokyo is known for its electric shops. This was the perfect place to organize a gadget hunt. All participants had the objective to find the most original gadget for a small, given budget. The committee did not yet see all the gadgets but the ones we saw were very promising on the front of originality.