Two kinds of pilgrimage

Apologies for the long delay in writing this - the internet won't be connected to my flat until Thursday, and although I got an iPhone on Sunday, I don't yet have the necessary precision in my fingertips to write a whole blog post with a small touchscreen keyboard!

Lots has happened since my last post - Victoria came to stay for a little while, and we went to Tsukiji fish market and Nikko. I've wanted to go to Tsukiji for years - I remember visiting the Sydney fish market in 2005 but nothing compares to the Japanese version, the biggest in the world. It's all over at Tsukiji by 11am each day, and to see the best of it you need to get there very early. We arrived at 7.00 and a few places were already packing up, but we still saw a lot - it was astonishing. There were tuna as big as me lying on enormous wooden slabs, being sliced up with massive band saws - I've only ever seen those used for woodwork before, never fish! As we walked past, an eel two feet long with a deep gash in its neck wriggled at us... there were gigantic crabs, blowfish, lobsters and clams live in tanks. Everywhere you walk there are miniature electric trucks zooming around you - crossing an aisle means taking your life in your hands. After we'd looked around for a while, we went for a sushi breakfast - the best sushi I've eaten in a very long time. It's not cheap but the fish is the absolute best quality, and the fish spills over the rice in very generous portions. The restaurant we were in was very quiet so the chef (in a mixture of slow Japanese and bits of English, with lots of pointing and other gesticulation) explained what everything was for us and dressed some of the sushi for us. The sea urchin (uni) was wonderful - I'd never tasted it before, and its bright orange colour and gloopy texture didn't initially seem all that appealing, but it had a rich marine flavour and was just delicious. Pictures to follow if I can purloin them from Victoria when I see her next month. I'm already planning a trip back, perhaps in time to see the legendary tuna auctions this time, although that would mean getting there at 5.00am, before any of the trains start running... I appreciate that my getting up this early may seem somewhat unlikely to you, if you've seen me struggling to get to 9.00am lectures, but I think I have it in me if it comes with a sushi reward.

Nikko was gorgeous - a pilgrimage town about two hours north of Tokyo, it's set amongst wooded mountains at the edge of a national park. The annual autumn festival was on Saturday - 800 people dressed in various traditional costumes, including samurai-wear and a few people dressed as 'evil magistrates' (that was how the English-speaking announcer described them, at least), some riding stallions, paraded up the hill from the town to the biggest shrine complex at the top of the hill. Victoria and I managed to nab a prime viewing spot right next to the main tori (ceremonial gate) so we could see the whole thing coming up the hill. The shrines themselves were breathtaking - there was a curious mixture of majestically large things, like the ornate inner gate at Toshogu (which is also the mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the shogunate that ruled Japan for 250 years until the Meiji restoration of 1868) and very delicate things, such as the wooden carvings of 'see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil' monkeys. We also visited the Rinnoji Buddhist temple which was serene and beautiful. Again, I wish I could put some pictures up - coming soon, I promise! After a solid few hours being dutiful tourists,　we felt we deserved a treat, and the Rough Guide alerted us to the former holiday home of an American diplomat, which is now a very smart teahouse. Proper strong coffee and very good chocolate gateau, taken on the terrace looking out over a garden filled with trees that were turning golden for autumn, was the perfect end to a great day.

More when I get the internet in my flat - stay tuned...