VacAsian Day Twenty Six (Wednesday, 28 May, Tokyo)

The American Heritage Dictionary defines "early" as "occurring, developing, or appearing before the usual time." When we say we got up "early," this morning, we mean we got up EARLY!!!

Robin decided that we were going to check out the Tsukiji Fish Market (or Tsukijishijo for those of you playing along in Japanese) this morning, based on recommendations from friends who have visited Tokyo and our guidebooks. Ostensibly, neither fish nor fishmongers have any concept of time, so the "action" at Tsukijishijo takes place in the 5 AM time frame.

Yes. 5 AM. In the morning.

Accordingly, we got up at 4:15 AM to dress and catch the Metro in time to get there by 5. As we got out of bed, Huey noticed a sliver of light seeping through the blinds. A sliver of light. At 4:15 AM. Curious, Huey opened the blinds to find the sun fully up and the sky lit up like Christmas. At 4:15 AM.

THIS is why Japan is known as "The Land of The Rising Sun."

We rushed down to Shiodome Metro station, only to find that the first train headed toward Tsukijishijo didn't leave until 5:19, a full hour after our far too early wakeup. We got to Tsukijishijo station around 5:30 and began the long walk out of the station to the market. As we walked, we passed group after group of obvious tourists walking in the opposite direction back in to the train station. Tokyo is a large and popular city, so normally passing groups of tourists wouldn't be cause for alarm. But it was 5:30 in the morning.

Have you figured out where this is going yet?

We emerged from the Metro station literally at the doorstep of Tsukijishijo. It was quiet. Eerily quiet. Another tourist walked in to the guard station near the entrance to ask for a map or general directions, but emerged with the bad news that none of the guidebooks shared: Tsukiji Fish Market is closed on Wednesdays.

POP QUIZ: you're on VacAsian, it's 5:30 in the morning, the sun is up, breakfast doesn't start until 7 AM, and you've been going nonstop for almost 4 weeks. What do you do?

Yep. We went back to our room and hibernated for three hours.

After breakfast, we went hunting for, and eventually found, Kiddie Land, another colossal toy store, and Oriental Bazaar, an indoor market-like shop, where we did a bunch more shopping. We took in the sights in that area, including a street of shops with names oddly translated to English. Our favorite? Store My Ducks. (Your guess is as good as ours.)

You may remember our advice from VacAsian Day Twenty about never shipping anything internationally. In case you've forgotten, here it is again: DON'T EVER SHIP ANYTHING INTERNATIONALLY!!! Huey spent several hours in the afternoon working on customs documents so that his spectacular, "would be lost without her" Office Manager Reina Bernfeld could be run around in overlapping circles by scores of different reps from FedEx, each of whom would give her distinct and in some cases conflicting instructions. Robin napped. Again, if it doesn't fit in your suitcases, leave it for housekeeping. We promise they'll give it a good home.

Thanks to our Metro station fairy godmother (see VacAsian Day Twenty Five), we had tickets for a Yomiuri Giants baseball game at the Tokyo Dome tonight, so we plotted our route on the Metro map and headed out in the late afternoon for the 6 PM game. The Yomiuri Giants may be best described as the New York Yankees of Japan: there are other professional teams in Japan, perhaps even better teams, but the Giants are by far the most popular. The Tokyo Dome is surrounded by Tokyo Dome City, an entertainment complex with shops, restaurants, clubs and bars, and an amusement park with a roller coaster and Ferris wheel. The Tokyo Dome itself is older, so it's no longer state of the art, but it remains the largest venue of its type in Japan.

Beyond the game on the field, the Japanese professional baseball experience is entirely different from its American counterpart. The stands are very clearly divided between fans of the home team and the visitors, as if the Tokyo Dome was a giant high school football stadium. Along those same lines, each team had cheerleaders and a "pep band" that played fight songs with which the fans sang along very loudly. The fans also chanted in unison, but what they said was lost on us. (We were two of maybe 100 Westerners in the entire 43,000 seat venue.) The time between half-innings was limited to 2 1/2 minutes, which was visibly counted down on the Jumbotron. There was no 7th Inning Stretch, no "Take Me Out To The Ballgame," and no Cracker Jacks. There were, however, hot dogs, pretzels, and Cokes.

There was also an amazing ice cream treat that we've not seen in the States, but for which we're thinking about becoming the exclusive US importers. Imagine two flat bowls made of the same edible styrofoam-like material from which cake cones are made. Then imagine you fill each bowl to the brim with ice cream. Finally, take one bowl and place it upside down on top of the other, merging the ice cream together, and seal the edges of the edible bowls, creating a hermetically-sealed ice cream sandwich that won't melt all over your hands or fingers. After we saw the people in front of us buy and devour one, we literally tracked the salesgirl all over the stadium, waiting for her to come back so we could each get one. And when we did....

It's a shame this was not CAKE, and cannot therefore be rated on the HACS Scale, because it was one of the best desserts we have had on the entire VacAsian (and we've had our share)!

Final Score: Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles 1, Yomiuri Giants 6.

"... Root, root, root for the home team, if they don't win it's a shame, for it's one, two, three strikes, you're out, at the old ballgame!"