Thursday, October 1, 2009

Tokyo …wow O, O 8/9/52009

I will make 3 posts of Tokyo trip , because we spent 3 whole days in Tokyo , and it’s impossible to post all the things I did in only one post ^^

As I said before in my previous post , we arrived at Hiroshima airport and left Hiroshima by plane JAL , it took one hour until we reached Haneda airport , I always wanted to travel by JAL airlines so I was really excited , the amazing thing was seeing mountain fuji ( fuji san)from the airplane window , we didn’t have the time to go there , but seeing it from the airplane was just amazing , it was surrounded by clouds, it was like Fujisan was floating T_T ( I will go to fuji san next time I go to Japan) ^^



We arrived at the Japanese language institute /Urawa which is located in an area called kitaUrawa , it’s not Tokyo , it takes 40 minute to reach Akihabara, 60 minutes to reach Harajuku ,and 70 minutes to reach Tokyo tower , so Tokyo was far from the institute area but the train made everything easy for us.



A ramen store…I went there with mai san (Egypt) , J san ( Poland)and Daniel san( Bulgaria) the same day I arrived to Kita Urawa ( The Japanese language institute) , it was really interesting when I was explaining for them that I don’t want ham meat in my ramen , all the people in the restaurant was involved in the discussion for some reason O_O afterwards we sang karaoke in the restaurant , what a nice evening ^_^

The next day (8/9/2009), we gathered at the lobby of the institute, and we headed to Tsukiji shijou(Tsukiji fish market ), which is the biggest wholesale fish and seafood market in Japan and also one of the largest wholesale food markets of any kind.

The market is located in Tsukiji in central Tokyo. The inner market ( jonai shijou) is the licensed wholesale market, where the auctions and most of the processing of the fish take place, and where licensed wholesale dealers operate small stalls. The “outer market” ( jogai shijou) is a mixture of wholesale and retail shops that sell Japanese Kitchen tools, restaurant supplies , groceries, and seafood, and many restaurants, especially sushi restaurants, most of the shops in the outer market close by the early afternoons, and in the inner market even earlier.

In my country, I read about this market at a magazine called ”Nipponia”( I was really sad when I heard from mikami sensei that this magazine is not going to be published anymore ).I liked Tsukiji market a lot ,The main reason for that is that I just love looking and touching fish ( Don’t ask me why!!!) , The market was really busy , and it was somewhat dangerous to walk without paying attention to the passing vehicles.

Kosuke san ( The trainee at the kansai institute ) told me that the market owners will be very busy so don’t expect them to be that nice , actually I think that they were really nice , one of the owners saw that I was interested in his crabs ( kani ) , so he brought the biggest kani(crab) in his shop and let me hold it , so I thought that this was really nice of him,infact he let us all hold it and take pictures with it , how nice was that!! T_T, I will remember the smell of Tsukiji market, it will always remain with me ^_^



Outer Market ^^





Kosuke san Holding the crab ( see how nice the owner was , he let us hold the crab ) ^_^



This is the kani store (crab shop) I told you about in tsujiki market^^ The owner was really nice ^_^



After that we headed to Asahi Shimbun, which is one of Japan’s leading daily newspapers that is published and edited by the Asahi Shimbun Company .its headquarters is located in central Tokyo area. The paper is the second most circulated in the industry, next to yomiuri shimbun.
I don’t have a lot if pictures of Asahi Shimbun because photos were not allowed there.




Daniel san ( I actully got alone with him , althought most of the time we were arguing , but I enjoyed it T_T)




The last stage of making Asahi newspapers ^_^



Alisher san and Our guide in Asahi shimbun ^_^( cute pic ne )

We left Asahi Shimbun at 12:30 pm and headed to Sensoji Temple , we arrived at 1:00 pm.
Sensoji temple is a very popular Buddhist temple that is located in Asakusa, it’s one of Tokyo’s few districts, which have preserved a certain atmosphere of the old Tokyo, Sensoji temple is Asakusa’s main attraction and also it’s the oldest temple in Tokyo , it was built in the 7th century.

Near the temple there is a street that is called “Nakamise Dori” ,it’s about 300m long and there are many small shops along the way. This street is one of the oldest shopping districts where you can buy souvenirs and see people cooking sweets like kaminari okashi ( “Thunder sweets”) sweet , crispy snack made of Japanese rice), and others.

I bought a yukata from there (Asakusa) , I can’t wait to wear it here in Jordan ^_^





Sensoji Temple ^_^




Nakamise Dori street , The place where I bought the yukata ^_^

After this amazing busy day, we went back to The Japanese language institute /Urawa , I talked with my Japanese friend (Emi chan )and decided a place where we can meet ,Emi chan came to Jordan in a program called (Jmesc/ Japan Middle East Student Conference 2009) , I really wanted to meet her and all my Japanese friends that participated in the same program ^^ , other people in our group (Aw no minasan) went to shinjuku , but instead I went to Akihabara to meet Emi chan ,Takako chan ( I love her a lot , she was an exchange student in Jordan, she used to study Arabic) and Remi chan ( I didn’t know her before, she is really nice and kawaii), I was really happy that I met my friends again and also because I was walking in Akihabara , which is a well known place for selling electrical devices (actually a lot of people in our group (Aw no minasan) bought electrical dictionary from there ), also it is the place for people addicted to anime or manga( anime no otaku no tokoro ^^).









YES this is AKIHABARA O,O

After that I went back to the institute, it took me 40 minutes from Akihabara, although I was lost in my way back but I really had fun (In case you’re wondering, I found the place eventually with the help of a very nice guy ).

This was my first Day at Tokyo, very busy and fun ^^

Next …I am going to post about my free day at Tokyo…T_T … so wait for the next post ^_^

9 comments:

Kosuke said...

Many pictures do make your blog good, which is the point I should learn! And Tokyo is such a place, I know, but it's fun and you should visit again yeah?

anyways, ttyl!

rua said...

Yeah , also kosuke , I did put a link to your blog , have you noticed that ???

and I am gonna visit Tokyo again , sore wa mochiron ^_^ see ya in Tokyo ^_^

Qutaibah said...

your posts become as daily story must read and interesting to waiting more
about wholesale fish
I saw program on JSC document as every time when I see something about japan I say I will go there +_+ :)

OMG u lost ur way
I prefer busy day

Anonymous said...

he let you hold the ''crap'' ?? crap means excrement ...
''crab'' with a ''B'' is what is most likely you wanted to refer to ... judging by your pictures that is !! !

rua said...

Ok Anonymous, I am glad that you corrected me but at the same time after my long post, you didn’t have any comment but the "crab" thing, somehow I find it weird O_O

Thank you anyway ^_^ at least you read the post ^_^

AliG said...

wow Rua amazing how did you memorize all the things that happens in Tokyo........... hontoni sugoi ^^

and the pic's for akibara is so grate i want to go there (.:T_T:.) well am crying already coz of it but i will go there soon T_T.

and i cant wait for the other two posts, ganbate in writing them.

rua said...

Qutaiba kun :
Thank you for always reading and commenting in my blog , I am glad that you liked the post about Japan , mada there is two posts about Tokyo and then back to Osaka and after that I am gonna write something more ^_^

ALIG kun :
Thanks for the Aw no minasan guide they gave us , it has all the places that we went to ;p

you are gonna go there and ganbarimasu ^_^

Unknown said...

AWESOME!!!!

AKIHABARA IS THE BEST!

put more pics

rua said...

Imo chan : haha , I am gonna put all akihabara pics in facebook , and as I said before , I am not an anime otaku dakara ^^ I loved the enviroment there ;p

the lights ^_^