Tsujiki Fish market

Biggest fish market in the world. One of the most amazing places I have ever been, saw Tuna the size of cows. All sorts of crazy shellfish. Massive red octopi. We even saw some guy hacking up a giant Tuna fish with a two metre long samuri sword. It was like disneyland for sushi freaks. And speaking of sushi, this morning after the fish market we had a sushi breakfast the likes of which will not be forgotten easily... We ate everything, raw octopus, squid, horse mackeral, delicious sweet sea eel, tuna belly, even the rare and highly regarded gizzard shad! The owner of the place did us a couple of UFO's for us too, saying that the best stuff wasn't even on the menu... we stuffed ourselves silly, and paid for it too! 11,000 Yen for two breakfasts, but it was well worth it...

I scare myself sometimes

It rained all night and all day. The floor was really slippy and I was walking down a big flight of stairs from Saganomia station. It suddenly occured to me that I had been automatically walking down the stairs without thinking about it at all. This is normal I guess, but as soon as I thought about what I was doing it made it really awkward for me to perform a simple action such as that. All I could think about was slipping and toppling forward to my doom.

Jees, I really am a twat...

333 times the joy.

I was sitting in the park yesterday watching some punk pop band record a video and some americans playing frisbee when this Japanese woman came ove to talk to me. She had a card dedicated to this lake in Japan and she wanted someone to write "thank you" on it in different languages, then she showed me this A4 piece of paper with 333 tiny little pictures of the lake on it, she told me to circle the lake once was lucky, but to circle 333 of them was 333 times the joy! Of course I obliged, then she thanked me profusely and left...

Buddhism, Tokyo style...

Last night went to a talk by Sogyal Rinpoche, the author of "The Tibeten book of living and dying", and monk to the stars. It was cool, especially considering the lifestyle I've been leading up until now. He gave a rambling 3 hour lesson about meditation interspersed with stories and jokes, and I loved every minute of it. I'm sure what helped greatly was that the talk was in a really cool nightclub (if a trifle "hippy") which had it's own micro brewery that made it's own summer ale and stout, both really nice! The only few negative points about the evening were that I'm not so used to sitting cross legged on the floor for three hours and that beer in Japan costs Four quid a glass... Other than that it was a nice evening. After the talk there was a Koto player and, this being tokyo, Veejays and Djs providing a futuristic take on the evening's events. As well as the usual hippy "lost it"s there was a bunch of cool people there too... I guess the Beasties have done wonders for Buddhism... Maybe better poster boys than Richard Gere, I dunno.

In summary, I learnt:

• To be truly happy one has to turn the mind inward and make it like a placid pool.
• Depression and other mental problems are caused by thinking too much.
• Through training the mind to be still one gains confidence and self assurance.
• Three hours is a fucking long time for me to be sitting cross legged on the floor.
• Reverend Buddhist lamas prefer a light summer brew to a thick stout.

Thus endeth the lessons for today. I'm back in the Tokyo I have become used to, sitting in a little wipe clean internet booth with smoked windows wondering how many of those noises I can hear are people finishing themselves off to Manga pornography...

Peas out.

I dunno what's more disturbing

Trying to beat juggle Iron Maiden's "can I play with madness", or the fact that Ben owns two copies of it...

livin' on a razor's edge, balancing on a ledge,

Dan

Call me Ishmael...

Monday morning we got up at 4.30 in the morning, drove to Tokyo bay with Ben's Housemate Alex and a few of Ben's Japanese friends. We got on a chartered fishing boat and headed out into the bay.

I had never ever been fishing before, and was a little concerned about the whole icky side to it all, but I felt a need to be able to justify eating animals by killing my own dinner so I had to get over my queasiness and get in touch with the caveman inside me.

It was one of the best days I've had in ages, the weather was fine and the sea was calm, it was a really beautiful day. The most disgusting part was sticking the bait on the hooks and the buckets of chum we used to attract the fish. The actual fishing part was disturbingly easy and I caught two Agi (I think they are called horse mackeral) as well as two poor random fish that went back into the sea. Ben caught three fish and Alex caught five including a monster mackeral.

Last night Alex's girlfriend came round and she helped him cook up the fish for dinner. We had them fried and in a kind of Miso stew. It was the nicest fish I have ever eaten.　

Umm... Maybe this story isn't very interesting, I had to write it down so I would remember it. I promise to stick some stupid shit up here soon.

Night clubbing...

On Saturday night we went to a stone's throw party at a nightclub in Tokyo called 'air'. Drinks seem to be very expensive here, but the Long Island Ice tea's were as ever. good value for money.

Realise now why I've never really met any famous people as after the show saw peanut butter wolf and Madlib and started hassling Madlib about how I used to eat peanut butter porridge, I think ben instigated it, but it is true. Now, not only was I waffling uniteresting shit, but it was to the wrong guy and all he kept saying was "I don't care, I'm madlib" over and over again.

After the club we went to the cockaroachey curry place and ate really hot chicken curries.

The end.

Another list.

• Very excited. Going sea fishing on Monday. We're gonna need a bigger boat.
• Europeans (and americans) don't acknowledge each other here at all.
• Tempura rocks.
• Ate deep fried chicken cartiledge.
• Fashions here include, white slip on shoes, the neo mullet and, of course, A bathing ape stuff.
• Ben and Alex are the perfect hosts.
• Have been eating lots of really nice food.
• Did Karaoke in a little booth just like in Lost in translation, they had some excellent songs of which I sang many. Especially liked Guns n Roses; It's so easy.
• They have little dollies here for men to dress up then fantasise over.
• It's just a really brilliant place!

eat me drink me love me kill me...

In the last few days I have eaten...

• Octopus balls
• Deep fried Fugu (Poisonous puffer fish)
• A massive snail that I had to pull out of it's shell
• The hottest chicken curry I have ever eaten
• A fish that Ben caught in the restaurant where you can hire fishing rods and bait and sit on a big boat in the middle of a pool. They took the fish away and brought it back as Sashimi, it was still kind of moving as we ate it. It was dark and strange. Reminded me of someone being hung drawn and quartered. Tasted lovely though.

Shibuya...

This is the place that's like bladerunner... Was even more so today because it was pouring down with rain and all the neon was reflecting off the road. My feet hurt from all the walking I've been doing and I've still got three weeks or so to go. :) I'm not complaining though... This place is totally mental.

Today I was walking around listening to The wedding present on full volume and I think the furious strumming, fuzz bass and white noise has helped a lot.

Bathing ape do condoms now...

Camo ones. It's true.

First impressions... Last.

Only been here a couple of days still, but Tokyo has been both exactly what I expected and nothing like how I expected. What follows is a list of things that have jumped out at me, apologies if I come out with all the cliches.

• You can buy anything from a vending machine, even pants. I have seen them
• Slightly out of the centres and the roads are really narrow and there seems to be an awful lot of greenery
• Camoflage bathing ape condoms
• Loads of people here seem to be really fashionable
• Today I spent the day in Yoyogi park, in one of the gardens I was the only person there for an hour, I certainly didn't expect that.
• The train and metro system here is probably the most confusing thing I have ever experienced
• It's humid.
• Pokari sweat is a nice enough drink.

That's it for today, webslingers.

Goodbye cruel world.

Waiting for my flight inHeathrow airport. Bought Curious incident of the dog in the night time and have Dave eggers' book that Chad Farquarr lent me. All is good. Not sure how and when this site will be updated due to the fact that the japanese all have computers embedded in their brains, so apparently internet cafes are hard to come by.

Until we speak again, take it easy.

And remember women's pants would be considered exactly the same as men's on a universal scale.

A Jesuit College has complained about these Haribo sweets depicting a green figure in sexual congress with a lemon, which is depicted as being 'obviously female'. Haribo spokesman says he admits the wrappers are 'racy'! LOL!