Best sushi ever and trains...

I know it's a weird combination for a post, but it kinda works out. You'll see.

Woke up nice and early this morning to meet some friends for sushi at the Tsujiki fish market (made the trip once before but didn't eat there. Some pictures can be found in this older post). This is where all the fresh fish and seafood is brought in and traded for all of Tokyo. The deliveries come in really early and there are several sushi shops nearby that sell fish directly from the market. We got there at 6:30am and had the most amazing sushi ever (also by far the most expensive). Some of the types I had tried before at other places actually tasted quite different than I was used to (always much better this time around). Other types that I had thought had no taste at all turned out to be very flavourful. It was quite the feast and I ended up pretty stuffed. That's probably the freshest sushi in the world.

So where do trains fit in to all of this? Well, to get to the fish market I had to take a couple of subway lines that I rarely use. When people think of Japan, and Tokyo in particular, they think super high tech and modern. While this is true some of the time, it is definitely not always true. The subways on these lines were ghetto. I'm talking super old, no fancy TV screens, no fancy doors, old ugly dark red exteriors, and even those old-school round headlights. They reminded me of the old streetcars Toronto used to have. Yes, that ghetto. Even the stations were decrepit. Dripping water, very humid and surprisingly small.

There is a stark contrast between these trains and the ones found on the JR Yamanote Line mentioned in the previous post. These are very new, fast, and smooth. Since this line connects commuters to many of the other important lines, the cars have TV screens that inform riders in both Japanese and English of delays on other lines. The delay notices include reasons, such as (hilariously enough) "rain" or "heavy wind." Huh?! On my way home from the observation deck yesterday, I noticed two different lines were experiencing delays due to "accident." It turns out that "accident" is a euphemism for "suicide." No joke. Two different jumpers during that one evening. Apparently this happens almost once a day somewhere in the city.

And thus concludes my sushi/trains post! See? It kinda made sense...