Apr 13, 2005 - Day 281 in Tokyo, Japan

Charles writes: Our overnight bus arrived at 6am. We arrived in Tokyo before everything open – except the fish market. With all the sushi they eat, it is no surprise that this is the world’s largest fish market (New York City is the second biggest). There were hundreds of stalls of fish vendors selling wild looking fish, crestations, and other sea creatures. Men were cutting up tuna the size of a small car … and other huge fish. Many of the fish were flopping around half alive. Several stalls had buzz saws cutting up the catch of the day. You had to be careful, there were whirling forklifts moving stacks of fish around and they don’t have a reputation of being mindful of tourists. After the market, we walked around the city, checking out the expensive shopping area (but not buying anything, of course). We found a park near the imperial palace where we lounge around on a large rock for a few hours watching turtles, ducks and cats and catching up on our lack of sleep from the bus ride. It’s the last photo; it reminded us of Central Park in New York. One thing we noticed in both Korea and Japan is the number of people wearing surgical masks. We think it’s to keep dirty air out of their lungs and keep them germ free!? The 8th photo is of people crossing the street, maybe 4 or 5 of them have surgical masks on. Some say it is because of paranoia about the SARS epidemic.