Eating ALL OF THE SUSHI in Tokyo 🍱🍣

Hi! We had a good long sleep, lots of coffee, and we feel like new people today. On the schedule is a sushi cooking class with a master sushi chef at the fish market. And a foodie tour in a different district , Shinjuku, tonight. We are managing the language barrier so far. We have eaten and taken cabs, so far so good.

The cab dropped us off at the fish market and with much turning in circles we found our tour guide on time. Miricles!! He led us up to the third floor to meet up with the 6 other people in the class and stayed as our interpreter.

Chris: I really didn’t know what to expect from the sushi making class but I was more than willing to do it, Rhonda really wanted to do it and all the reviews said it was a lot of fun. And it was a lot of fun. We “made” several pieces of sushi and a roll. We did pretty good except my roll was not near as pretty as Rhonda’s but over all I was pretty happy with my plate when we were done.

When we say we “made” sushi what we really mean is we balled up some sticky rice and shaped it and then put a piece of fish on top of it, but there was a learning curve to it and it was fun.

From what I’ve seen I think the big thing about being a great sushi chef is the ability to pick out quality fish and really advanced knife skills. We obviously didn’t do the carving and deboning and skinning of the fish but man the guy that did was pretty amazing with the knives. I’m sure it takes a long time to get that good but at the end of the day it’s kind of like being a fish butcher. I don’t know, I don’t think that’s Michelin Star worthy, hell, I could probably do that. But whatever, it was fun and I think we did pretty well.

Rhonda: I thought it was a lot of fun. I agree with Chris . It’s about knife skills that we didn’t have to do so the rolling it or shaping it was pretty easy. But we got to wear cute chef hats!

After the class we went to Shinjuko to wait around for the food tour. Mind you , we were stuffed from eating all of that sushi but there was 3 hours in between so we thought what ever! The cab let us out at our meeting place- Mister Donut- which is the most unlikely sounding name for a foodie tour! We wanted to find a bar to sit and watch the world go by for a bit. I just stood on a corner and asked people if they spoke English. This one gentleman said no, but then came back and said he would try. Then he led us down into the subway terminal and to a little bar. So sweet!

it was nice down there. Everything is so clean here. And the people are friendly and helpful even with the language barrier.

The food tour was amazing! One of the best we have done.

Chris: when we travel if a food tour is available we book it. We have done some great ones and some not so great ones. Before tonight the food tour we did in Buenos Aires was the best ever but man tonight took first place in a blowout. Our group of nine, including us , was diverse and international and our guide was a young bubbly Japanese woman and she was absolutely fantastic.

We really bonded with a young woman from Melbourne Australia who is here solo. We talked and talked about travel and family and you name it. She was so outgoing and interesting. But then, the food. We went to I think four different restaurants and the food was amazing and delicious and never ending. At every stop it was more food than most people would order if they went there for dinner and all with cocktails and beer and much saki, more alcohol than we have ever had on a food tour by far. I was going to try to remember and take note of and pictures of all the food but it was overwhelming, in a delightful way. Everything we ate was like nothing we have ever had and it was delicious.

When the tour ended we all hugged and said our good byes but first our guide walked us to a liquor store and helped us get wine for our room and then she got us a cab and gave them the name of our hotel. It was such a great day.

Rhonda: The first stop was for food from Okinawa. She explained because of the American military base there is an American influence. It was evident in one dish that mimicked a taco salad. It had a layer of lettuce, rice, ground beef, egg, and a pico. Then we had a bitter melon and tofu dish with spam. And spam fries with ketchup. Then purple yams fried with a crispy crust. Every single dish was amazing!

We walked to the red light district to have fried pork. But on the way we stopped to watch the Godzilla statute do a little show.

It’s very cute but also important here. About 10 years ago that area was gang ridden and there were fights that killed a lot of people. The town managers got together and very wisely decided that those criminals would not want to be in a lot of photos. So they built this statue and made it a tourist area. The gangs left!!

We then went on to two more restaurants where we had sashimi, fried chicken, seaweed pearls and soup dumplings. We were sooooooooooo stuffed! But it was all amazing.

That area of town was the area you see when you google Tokyo. It was the bright lights, the crowds, the pretty people, and lots of neon.

We are full and sleepy so we will say goodnight. We have a 12 hour tour tomorrow to Mt. Fuji, a train, a drum dance, a boat to an island and who know what more. Should be a great day!

Love yall.