We left at 830 this morning and went to my usual breakfast place – Segafredo. We watched the mayhem of the station for a bit and then caught the train to Tsukiji (fish market). We walked around town for a bit and made it to the gates bang on 10.00, which was when the gates open to the public. So we didn’t get to see any sales but saw them packing things up and also got to walk through most of the market and see all the fish. It was a “no photos” area but there were a high number of tourists with their camera out. We looked at one fish and the guy said “fugu”. Michael asked if he could take a photo and the guy said ok.

We then had second breakfast. We found a donbourie restaurant with no line which was great as people were lined up at all the sushi places (as we did last time), with a beer, but also a very refreshing cold green tea. Once finished we moved on to tsukigi honganji which is the main temple in the area.

After a look around there and watching a bit of the memorial service we caught a train to ryougoku and went to the museum for a walk around. We spent probably a couple of hours there. It had a great history of the edo period as well as more modern tokyo.

Then it was time for our “big event” of this trip. SUMO! Kenichi and Kaoru had organized tickets for us, so in we went and found our seats. We watched a couple of bouts but because it was still early they were low grade. We bought some lunch and beer and watched for more, learning bits of the rules. We watched a number of fights over the afternoon and it was really enjoyable. The very last fight had an upset as a lower ranked person beat the higher ranked!  This caused the crowd to go wild which included throwing cushions at the stage!  We couldn’t tell if this was from excitement or disgust.

After the fights were over it was about a 20 minute walk to the place Kaoru had organized dinner for the night. It was a Michelan restaurant and owned by an ex Sumo wrestler. There was a ring in the middle which used to be a training ring. We had a hot pot there which was great.

We made our way back to the station and to Shinagawa. We then went to the supermarket on the second floor at the station and bought a few drinks and snacks. We went back to our room to plan the next days activities and get some work done.