franc franc!

yesterday we met mf and sl who took us to the fish market in tsukiji fish market and we arrived at...11am! the fishmongers were packing up already so we only saw one or two of them chopping up tuna. we walked along the dry market and saw alot more - crabs, seaweed, dried anchovies, etc. and puffer fish as well. we chanced upon a small shop where the guy was grilling scallop on charcoal so we had some each - the gravy was delicious and we held the shell and drank it all up. we saw a sushi place next to the shop and the set looked quite tempting so we went inside where they were playing jazz instrumental music of the more serious kind and we enquired and the chef said he was a fan of jazz.

later we took the metro to shinjuku and it started drizzling. we chanced upon queues of people at krispy kreme outside the station and went into a very nice shop called franc franc which sold household and quirky things and we saw a beautiful toaster which we admired for really long and later we went online and saw that the brand was endorsed by tyler brule - so of course we had to enquire more about it and actually today we went to the shop at ginza. we went into takashimiay times square across which was huge and walked about for several hours at kinokuniya where i bought faye her 'with' magazine and an interior magazine. it seemed like the departmental stores are a tad boring with the more exciting shops being at street level at the alleyways with all the lights and people, even with the mild rain. we found a cafe and had some hot coffee and drinks in there to escape from the cold - it was super cold yesterday with the rain and everybody was holding their transparent umbrellas.

we had dinner at one of the shops in the alleyways where you have to slot in coins in a machine at the entrance to get a coupon that you hand over to the people in the kitchen when you enter - apparently to deter drunkards, mf said, cos you paid for your meal first. the udon soup was delicious and so was the katsu don and tempura fishcakes.

shopping is really endless in japan, there are so many alleyways in each different district and the weather makes it great to walk the streets.