Tsujiki Fish Market and Sushi Dai

At 3am, I woke up wide awake.  Jet lag! Ugh!  Why hasn’t science fixed you?! But figured, I might as well head to the Tsujiki fish market to see the fresh fish being unloaded from the boats and catch a glimpse of the famous tuna auction!

SO at 3am, I walked through my neighborhood to the subway which all guides seemed to promise was open 24 hours.  It’s not.  They were wrong.  But I found a taxi guy and managed to finagle a ride to the market for $30.  (It should have been $60 but every time the driver tried to let me out of the cab I kept pointing, silently and urgently ahead until my google maps told me I arrived.)

It was dark in the fish market but men were already there unloading their trucks with fresh fish and setting up their shops.  As I made my way to the arena for the giant tuna auction, I saw groups of white people walking away dejectedly.  When I got there I was told that they had sold out of tickets at 2:30!  Earlier than any guidebook had said possible.  I stuck a 2,000 yen fresh note ($20) in between my fingers and saddled up to the guard. 

“Sir, my friend is in there and she is waiting for me.”   I casually laid the money by his hand. 

“No sorry, tickets sold out.”

Drats! That would have totally worked in Africa!

“But sir, my sister is getting married in there!”

“Please leave now.”

With nothing else to do at 3:30am, I decided to head to Sushi Dai a sushi restaurant in the heart of the fish market and the proclaimed best sushi in the world.  The fish was unloaded from the boat and straight into the back of the restaurant where the chefs take great care to tamper with the fish as little as possible before serving.  The freshest in the world.  Already there was a snaking line.  The restaurant opened at 5am and there was already about 30 people in front of me.  And the restaurant seats 12 at a time. 

Oh well, still wide awake with nothing else to do, I settled in and made friends with the group behind me.  6 fortysomething native New Yorkers.  It did not surprise me that the New Yorkers were where the good food was.  We took turns holding our place and exploring the market place, going to the bathroom, getting coffee, and purchasing delicious tamago (sweet egg) on a stick. 

Tamago

It was fun being so still.  As a tourist, you’re always rushing trying to see the next thing but missing everything along the way.  The line had me watch the sun rise over Tsukiji market and almost get hit (several times) by men whizzing by on their trolleys, cigarette lit in their mouths.  The air was so laden with fish you could taste it. 

The sun rose and the non foodies, noodies if you will, started to meander into the market.  They often came up to our line.

“What’s this line for, brah?”

“Sushi.”

“Oh sweet, how long have you been waiting for?”

“3 hours.  We’ve been here since 4.”

“Whaaaaa.  That’s insane!”

We smiled at their naivity.  They don’t know what it’s like to truly want something.  To wait for it.  To yearn for it.  Noodies. 

Meanwhile, I’m on the phone with my mother who is salivating cathartically.  She read the reviews over the phone to me. 

“Try the fatty tuna, I hear it’s out of this world.  OH I’m so JEALOUS.”

When it was my turn, I was waved in.  The benefit of being a solo traveler, I ate a full hour before the group behind me.  It was 7:30 am. 

I was sat at a long counter with 11 other chosen ones.  Behind the bar was thick slabs of glistening fresh fish and 3 chef masters. I was given a ceramic cup of thick green tea and a hot towel.  I patted my face, readying myself.  First course was a seafood miso soup.  Fresh large clams and pieces of fish made the already salty miso taste like you were drinking the ocean.

Miso Soup

Next course was a cube of sweet egg tamago.  With a consistency of an omlette but sweetened with sugar and soy sauce, it was exactly what I needed to ready my palette this early in the morning.

Tamago

The sushi was placed directly on the counter in front of us.  The chef used a brush to glaze the fish with a hint of soy sauce and a dab of wasabi so it was ready to pop right into our mouths.  

The first sushi was the fatty tuna, the most popular sushi in the restaurant.  It was the best thing I’ve ever tasted.  So buttery and supple you barely had to chew, it melted in your mouth.  It was sunshine.

Fatty Tuna

A large pile of freshest ginger was available for a chew in between pieces to cleanse the palette.

Next was the snapper.  It had more of a bite to it than the tuna and almost had a citrus taste.   I took to closing my eyes when I put the sushi in my mouth.

Snapper

Then the chef put down a piece of sushi that was moving.  The  clam on top of the rice wiggled as if saying hello.  I put in into my mouth and I could feel it wriggling against my tongue.  It was creepy.  Definitely more of a struggle to get down than the grasshoppers in Uganda.

I ate red snapper.  I turned to my friends behind me still waiting just outside the restaurant, faces pressed against the window.  “It’s amazing,” I mouthed, and they cheered and high fived each other.

Red Snapper

The sea urchin was so flavorful, fishy and salty and almost meaty.  But the slimyness threw me off a bit. 

Sea Urchin

Then came the Spanish Mackerel or Sawara.  Sushi Dai you clever bastard, you had me reeling.  I Daid and went to heaven.  It was plump and flavorful and smooth.  Subtly fishy.  It took me there.

Spanish Mackerel

We finished the meal up with tuna, horse mackerel, tuna and cod egg maki, and sea eel.  When the chef asked me what I liked best, I said the fatty tuna.  And he gave me another piece!

Tuna

Horse Mackerel

Sea Eel

Tuna and Cod Eggs

I bowed to the master chefs and left.  Now 9am, the fish market was packed with fish and tourists and restaurant owners.  I was full and sleepy and walked around the market like a fatty tuna. 

I rolled myself back to the apartment and took a nap. I had tickets to see Sumo wrestling!

First Day in Tokyo: Harajuku!

It’s Sunday!  The day the Japanese Harajuku girls come out to play in their platform shoes and rainbow hair and glitter makeup!  I’ve been obsessed with the Harajuku for years.  See vintage picture of me, 10 years ago: 17, dressed up as a Harajuku girl for Halloween.

I scooched on down to the Harajuku district and took a walk on the famous Takeshita street.  Everything was pink and smiley.  There was surround sound giggles.  The girls wore two main styles.  The innocent: lace bib shirt, tulle skirt, soft pink, barretes.  And the wild: 6 inch platforms, teal hair in pigtails, candy necklaces.  I crushed it in jeans and a tshirt.

Because I wanted to be supersaturated with sweetness, I went to the pompompurin café.  Pompompurin is one of the many famous Sanrio characters in Japan.  Hello Kitty’s cousin or something.  I ordered this cute little pompompurin cup of pudding with a chocolate beret hat.  I asked the old man next to me if I could take a picture of his pompompurin rice.  He obliged.

Just as I was leaving the district I saw what I thought  was a parade of Harajuku girls.  But no!  It was the Tokyo Pride parade!  I joined them for awhile, shouted for gay rights a little, took a few videos, and then took a nap.

At dusk, I went to the top of the Mori art museum and saw all of Tokyo from 52 stories high.  It was magic.  Made even more magic by the limited time only Sailor moon exhibit. 

For dinner I stuffed my face with fresh, delicious sushi and jetlagged home.

I Made it to Tokyo

I wasn’t sure how I was going to get from the airport to my Airbnb in Tokyo.  

I booked the my ticket to Japan 6 months ago in a rush of “when again am I going to have the time and money and no ties (no boyfriendbabyapartment…oi) to travel to Tokyo on my own?”  I’ve wanted to go to Japan ever since when in the third grade, my mom and I started an extracurricular research project on Japan and the bullet train. nerds.

Loopy and jetlagged from 24 hours of travel, I wandered around the airport until I figured out a thing and got my body on a bus to Tokyo.  The bus spit me out in Shinjuku district which looks like an arcade game threw up on Times Square.  I wondered around the streets dragging my suitcase, big haired and squinty eyed, letting the lights lead me in circles.  

After I calmed down, my other senses picked up and I started to smell all of counter top Ramen restaurants.  I came to Japan to explore the culture and history yadda yadda but I really came to eat.  So at 10pm I dragged my suitcase into one of these Ramen restaurants.  I was confronted by a machine with lights and Japanese.  I stood there looking at the machine, like a zombie, until someone came over to help me.  They pointed at a picture menu with numbers corresponding with the buttons.  You press a button, put in the money, and it spits out a ticket that you give to the counter.  

5 minutes later I was eating a bowl of salty ramen with soba noodles and shrimp tempura.  I sat at my little seat facing the counter and let the ramen tell me it was time for bed.

I still had to find my apartment.  I found a taxi and the door opened magically on its own!  After many nervous pointing and “arigatos” we found our way to the apartment.  I figured out all the tricks to getting in, facetimed my mommies, and collapsed into bed.  But not before going to the bathroom where the toilet played trickling waterfall music and the seat warmed and different buttons did surprising things with water and hot air.

Sunshine

When I was 23, I went to Tanzania to help set up an electronic database to track babies with HIV.  I wrote about the clinics (http://chelseatosea.blogspot.com/2013/07/we-woke-up-early-and-met-with-member-of.html)  and how I held a baby with HIV and how ““[The nurse] didn’t want to tell mothers they were HIV positive if she didn’t have the medicine to treat them.”  Her words circled me for years.  I didn’t think I could work with HIV again.

But now I’m back in Africa, back in the HIV clinics, this time in Swaziland: a country with the greatest HIV prevalence in the world (26%).

I was led into the clinic and greeted by the Nurse, Sunshine.  Sunshine was in her late forties and had long braided hair dyed red at the tips that she kept in a swinging ponytail.  She was an HIV prevention nurse who has been working with adolescent girls for the past 15 years.

“Hello momma, come sit down.” Sunshine had a voice as colorful as her namesake.

I sat down on a chair in the minimal but clean and brightly lit clinic. 

“Hi Sunshine it’s so great to meet you!  Can you please take me through what a normal HIV Prevention session looks like?”

“Of course momma.  You see, I tell my queens that their vagina is their playground.  But they have to keep it protected.”

She opens up her wooden drawer and pulls out a massive black dildo and slaps it on the desk.  It wobbles around a bit before standing aggressively erect. 

“I tell my queens, you can have fun with a brother,” she starts waving around the dildo “but tell him he cannot enter your Southern Hemisphere without a condom.”

We moved on to female contraceptives.

“I tell my queens, if your man tells you that your IUD is poking his thing, you come straight back in and I’ll cut your strings so you can get right back to it.”

I can see the line of young girls outside many with babies of their own.  The same kind of line I saw in Tanzania years ago.  But I’m older now.  It’s the same heavy, dark field, but it’s the lightness that I can now see and take home with me.  The Sunshine.

On my way out Sunshine pulled me to her side.

“I hear the US has condoms that light up in the dark?  Could you bring us back some of those? I think we could have fun with them.”

I promised her I would.

A Dating Life of First Chapters

Speed dating through NYC has left me winded.  Tinder, Ok Cupid, Coffee Meets Bagel, Cupid Drinks a Coffee.  I have been on 19 dates in 2 months.  It’s not the dates that are leaving me exhausted but the ease at which each person enters and then abruptly leaves my life.  It’s the dichotomy between the almost relentless connections we maintain on social media and the jarring transience of our dating life.

I dated my last boyfriend for only 4 months but Facebook still shows me his picture every day.  Linked in tells me he got that new job he wanted and Instagram tells me it wasn’t in my head, he really did like her, love her?

And while it’s totally messed up that we can’t move on, that I know he ate a banana for breakfast, it’s also sort of comforting.  There remains a connection that justifies the days and dreams and anxieties I shared with him.  It’s not just gone.

If Facebook anchors me to past loves, online dating has me throwing lines out again and again just to leave me baitless and hungry.

I am so sorry you still love your ex-girlfriend but please do not cry on our date.  It’s embarrassing.  And I know you’re excited but please don’t reach over and honk my boob 30 minutes into our first beer.  Because that’s sexual assault and the guy before you tried it already.

And although it’s fun to always have a story about a crazy to share over brunch, I would give up the laughs to share a cup of coffee with someone who has lasted through the season.

And so I reach out and lean in and learn about your sister’s new baby and how you also just want a connection, something to sustain past this drink, the now.  And then it ends.  Facebook told me that the guy I dated in college for 2 months rode a horse in his wedding but I’ll never see you again. After two more dates I won’t remember if you were you from Kentucky or Tennessee?

We love to live for love and love for life.  So how do I rectify an online life where I’m almost forced to attach with a dating life of first chapters?

A few weeks ago I met up with Matt, a man I had been texting with for days.   Both curly haired Italians, we hotly contested how my Brooklyn sawce would beat his Boston sahce. When we met, we didn’t stop talking until I hit him in the face with my talking hands.  But neither of us felt the romance. 

Would he be just another Matt OkCupid in my phone to be erased in a month?

Yesterday, I went on a date with someone who didn’t believe in Gay people.  Didn’t believe they existed.   I immediately called Matt.  “That’s nothing,” he said.  “I went on a date with a girl who asked me to spank instead of kiss her at the end of the night.”  I smiled because 1) good for her and 2) because I knew I would see Matt again when he posted on Facebook tomorrow. 

First Field Trip in Ethiopia

I woke up at 6 am and met my coworker downstairs for breakfast.  We were going to a rural town in West Ethiopia called Assosa.  I would be visiting the clinics in my project to see, for the first time, how they were running the programs I only read and wrote about.  It was a 1 ½ hour plane ride and I knew I was getting close when the captain said, “we will be landing after some time and some time and the weather in Assosa is fine.”

Assosa is bright, primary colors. Red dirt and green bushes and women with yellow and blue head scarves.  We drove for hours in a bumpy land cruiser to get from clinic to clinic.  Every time my jaded eyes glazed over “this looks like Uganda” something would jar me back to Ethiopia.

Mud hut. Mud hut. Mud hut. MAN RIDING DONKEY. Mud hut. Mud hut. Mud hut. CAMEL.

The differences are subtle but I make myself savor them because I don’t want to be so world-weary at 26 that my eyes barely flicker.

At the clinics we asked the health care workers and a focus group of mothers how they felt about the calendar we developed to help them remember their Antenatal Care and immunization visit dates.  The interviews had to be translated from the local language to Amharic to English.  They would talk for an hour and by the time it would get to me the translator would tell me “they love it.”  During all this translation I had time to squeeze a lot of baby cheeks.  It was damn cool to hear what they think about a tool that was so abstract to me before.  That I had helped convince donors about and yet had never seen actually being used.  Many of the women had deep tribal scars on their face that made them look like they were perpetually crying.

We visited women at their homes and they showed us how they used the calendar to remind them of important dates.  The mud walls and straw roofs make their homes very cool.  There is usually a tarp separating the kitchen area (coal fire, a few bowls and pots), and the main part which has 1 or two big beds for the family to sleep on.  They sometimes hang dried corn from the ceilings and paint pictures on the walls.  The women told us how even their kids and husbands read the calendar and help them remember important dates.

Back at the office, I ran to the squat toilet because I had been holding it in all day.  Just as I was congratulating myself for aiming properly, I realized I didn’t have toilet paper.  I had to inconspicuously waddle around the office until I found some.

The next day we traveled to a remote hospital to see the new infant warmer they had installed.  I have learned to guard myself when I go into clinics. There are always things I don’t want to see.  And if I don’t see them, then I don’t have to look away.  http://chelseatosea.blogspot.com/2014/05/a-moment.html 

In the delivery room I saw the newborn warmer.  My colleagues oooed and ahhed at the wonderful advancement.  The room looked like a scene out of Jacob’s Ladder.  Beds were falling apart and the delivery bed looked like a medieval torture device.  I’ve seen maternity wards in these countries hundreds of times. But my friends in the US are starting to have babies. Recently on Facebook, a friend took us through her experience giving birth to a premature baby.  Every day she posted pictures of the baby hooked up to all sorts of machines, fighting for life. And she looked so small.  Here, a baby must look microscopic.  I can’t imagine how hard it’s going to be to come back here once I have children of my own.  The guilt just might do me in.  We congratulated the clinic staff on their new machine and got back in the car.

I ended my field trip with honey wine, communal eating and a scary butcher that posed for a photo.

Hello from Ethiopia

I landed in Addis at 1pm, plenty of time to get to the hotel, shower, and hit the town so that I could write an adventurous blog post.  Instead, I saw the bed and my eyes watered up like I was seeing an old friend.  So instead of exploring, I drank cup after cup of silky Ethiopian coffee and played Adele's new song on repeat.

Hello from the other siiiiiiiide.