"just enjoy!"

Hired by IMJS to arrange our housing, help us get settled, provide detailed instructions on how to get to our lessons and rehearsals and just generally help us with whatever problems may arise, Terumi-san has been a godsend here in Tokyo. Besides the official escorting, translating, etc. though, she's just a fun person to hang out with. So, when the four of us decided to stay out all night in order to go to the fish market at Tsukiji we of course called her at 12:30am from Shibuya station to see if she wanted to come hang out.

Tsukiji is the biggest and busiest fish market in Japan, handling 87% (according to this site) of the fish and other marine goodies that get shipped to the rest of the country. Since all the action takes place starting around 4:30am and, as previously noted, public transportation conveniently stops running around midnight, we decided to make a night of it. Shibuya was supposed to be one of those areas of the city that caters to the late-night crowd but when we arrived it seemed pretty dead. Then we remembered that Terumi lived in Shibuya. We were understandably hesitant to call in the wee hours on a wednesday night but I'm glad we did because not only did she come out to meet us but she invited us back to her apartment to hang out until it was time to go to the market.

Terumi insisted on introducing us to a variety of Japanese specialties that evening, including umeboshi (pickled plums), sake and nattou (fermented soy beans). Nattou is notorious for its unusual flavor and consistency, as well as its generally unfavorable reception by gaijin but I was nevertheless curious to try it. Ruth took a rather amusing picture of my reaction to it - a little green in the face and looking like I don't know whether to cry or laugh. I will spare you for the moment. Terumi simply laughed and implored us to "just enjoy!"

4:30 rolled around surprisingly fast and we stumbled down to the station to catch the first train to tsukiji. It turned out to be a really interesting experience. Rows upon rows of stalls filled with every kind of marine animal, dead and alive; tuna being auctioned off and then carted around individually or in pairs on mini-flatbed carriers; unusual delicacies such as gigantic tuna eyeballs sold for 100yen a piece. We wandered around for a bit taking pictures and then had sushi for breakfast at a nearby shop. Now that was some fresh fish!

<-- Some of the larger tuna here were aparently worth more than my grant to get to Japan.

Eating sushi for breakfast after exploring Tsukiji. Note zombie-like expressions due to lack of sleep -->

A couple days later it was Ben's birthday and it just so happened that it was was Terumi's birthday as well. We celebrated by going out for some Karaoke. I didn't know what to expect as I'd never been before but the place we went to had individual rooms (designed for groups but we did see a guy singing his heart out by himself in one room..) with booths and karaoke machines and a remote control for ordering food and drinks. Japanese are serious about they're karaoke. Terumi later admitted to practicing with her Cher and Maroon 5 CDs at home before coming. I heard that this is pretty common though and I even heard that proving your karaoke abilities at a company outing can make or break your boss' impression of you. Pretty intense.

Here is Terumi holding her new ryuteki (our birthday present to her) and her husband displaying the Texas flag Ben gave them ->