We all rose before dawn today (not a difficult task, considering that we’re all jet-lagged and wide-awake at 5am anyway) and dined on coffee and French pastries before braving the rush hour traffic on the train to go down to the Tsukiji Wholesale Market, renowned for its fish auction.

It rained overnight, and the streets were still wet when we left, though the day dawned sunny and warm.

We boarded the train right at the beginning of the morning rush hour. It was interesting watching all the working folks crammed on the trains—the men were almost without exception attired in black suits with white shirts, while the young women were more casually and fashionably dressed. And then there was the occasional middle-aged or older woman wearing a kimono and obi, usually with a cellphone in hand texting merrily away.

Lori noted how quiet Tokyo is, considering what a busy metropolitan place it is. Despite the traffic, there’s hardly any honking, and people on the train use their phones to text-message rather than talk. What is prevalent are white-gloved policemen directing traffic with whistles and flags or batons (especially where there are driveways in and out of lots or garages, and there are usually two policemen to direct cross-traffic and pedestrians), and public announcements over the PA systems in train stations, malls, etc.

We walked from the train station to the Tsukiji Wholesale Market, home of the famous fish auction. We missed the auction (which is officially closed to the public, anyway) but toured the organized chaos that is the market. It’s part warehouse/distribution center and part farmers’ market/flea market, with dozens of tiny stalls selling everything from fresh and pickled vegetables to green tea, Japanese omelet, knives, to bulk restaurant supplies like the plastic food displays, disposable chopsticks and plastic takeout trays.

Inside the market buildings, tiny trucks raced around much larger trucks, piled high with Styrofoam containers of fish packed in ice, and in one case, we saw a young, grinning man giving a lift to very prim and proper older lady who stood on the back of his truck, clinging to a rail. We also saw a number of men in business suits and ties but wearing gum-boots--we assumed that they were seafood brokers.

There were a number of tiny hole-in-the-wall sushi/sashimi/yakitori restaurants tucked amidst the stalls, most with long queues of people waiting to eat fresh-off-boat sashimi for breakfast. After wandering the aisles for a while, and dodging a constant stream of tiny delivery trucks, delivery mopeds, and even delivery bicycles, all loaded with Styrofoam boxes of fish, we decided to join the masses and have fish for breakfast.

We found a quirky little restaurant, barely six feet wide, divided by a counter that could seat eight customers at a time. Our host was a bubbly Japanese man with dyed blond hair and eyeliner who introduced himself as JJ. He bustled between the tiny kitchen in the back, where his Mom and Dad were manning the stoves, and the counter, serving up hot tea, rice, miso soup, and main dishes along with language lessons.

Nick, Lori, and I shared a dish of exquisitely fresh sashimi, a platter of mouth-meltingly tender grilled eel, and yakitori (grilled chicken on bamboo skewers). The tuna sashimi was a dark, bloody red, which Lori found rather off-putting, and the chicken yakitori had couple of raw spots, but the eel was wonderful, with crispy skin on the outside, and glazed with a sweet teriyaki sauce.

I enjoyed my meal, but Nick was rather lukewarm about the food, and Lori pretty much stuck to the rice and miso soup. We all enjoyed talking to JJ, though.

With full tummies, we left the hustle-bustle of the Tsukiji Wholesale Market behind, and soaked in the serenity of the nearby Hama-rikyu gardens, which were once a private park belonging to the Tokugawa shoguns in the 17^th century.

It’s a very peaceful place, set between the high-rises of downtown Tokyo and the mouth of the Sumida River where it empties into Tokyo Bay. The gardens are landscaped with artificial hills and artfully-placed boulders set amongst groves of beautifully manicured pines, rolling lawns and several large saltwater ponds arched by bridges. It felt like a million miles away from the chaos of the nearby Tsukiji Market.

I had previously visited these gardens four years ago, when I traveled to Japan with my sister. Then, as now, we stopped in at the beautiful little tea-house built over the lake and took part in a tea ceremony.

The tea-house is a pavilion made of wood, with sliding screens that open the sides of the building to views of the lake and garden. It is surrounded by a tiny rock garden with raked gravel in swirling wave patterns.

Removing our shoes, we knelt on red cloth runners placed over tatami matting, and looked out over the lake, where a large gray heron and several smaller cormorants were fishing. The hostesses served us the frothy, dark green tea in large bowls on black lacquer trays, accompanied by a tiny, exquisite sweet red bean cakes molded and tinted to look like an autumn leaf.

Kneeling gracefully and placing the tray on the mat before us, she placed her hands on the mat and bowed deeply, her forehead touching the backs of her hands.

We returned the bows as best we could, and started with the red bean cake, as instructed by the helpful tea ceremony flyer. According to the instructions, we were supposed to pick up the sweet, helpfully served on a small square of stiff paper, and put it in our left hand, then slice it into bite-sized pieces with the provided bamboo pick, spear each piece, and put it in our mouths. Only when we’d finished with the sweet were we supposed to sip the tea, which was refreshingly bitter.

Since it was still not yet 10am, the gardens and tea-house were relatively deserted. As we were finishing up our tea, a group of elderly Japanese ladies entered the tea house. We exchanged bows and greetings, then left to tour the rest of the garden, before heading back to the hotel to drop off some souvenirs purchased at the fish market.

We took a slightly different route returning to the train station, finding that a series of catwalks connected the district’s high-rise buildings, allowing us to escape the traffic on the streets below. The catwalks were very modern in glass and chrome, but as we rounded corners, we encountered whimsical sculptures, flowerboxes and little greenhouses, and even a miniature Shinto shrine with a red-painted torii gate.

The mid-morning train was a lot emptier than it had been previously, though we did see some interesting people, including a large man, shiny with baby oil, wearing a yukata and with a samurai hairdo. Our guess was that he was a professional sumo wrestler.

We stopped in at our hotel room for a half-hour or so to refresh ourselves, before venturing out again to the train station, and heading up to the Asakusa district, and the famous Senso-ji Buddhist temple.

As I remembered from my previous trip, it was a very lively place on a Monday afternoon, with a long avenue of shops leading between the main gate (hung with a very distinctive giant red lantern), and masses of people shopping for purses, fake samurai swords, kimono, wigs, keychains, t-shirts, fans, chopsticks, obi, and a dizzying array of sweets. There were chestnut-filled pastries in various shapes, unique ice cream flavors such as black sesame, and little waffle-like cakes filled with sweet red bean paste and molded in the shapes of the temple lantern and the protective guardian statues, along with many other brightly-colored items I found impossible to identify.

Lori bought a few of the waffle-cakes, still warm, and shared them. They were delicious.

We finally made it through the gauntlet of shops, and emerged into the main courtyard in front of the temple. There was a huge cauldron filled with sand, wreathed in fragrant smoke from where worshippers stuck the bundles of incense sticks in the sand, and lots of construction going on as workers erected rows of temporary booths in preparation for an upcoming festival.

There were also numerous fortune-telling booths, where people shook out a numbered stick from metal canisters containing dozens of similar sticks, then matched the number on their stick to a drawer containing a ribbon of paper printed with a particular verse. They then tied the paper to a metal frame.

The temple itself was a huge space filled with throngs of people variously praying, sightseeing, and throwing offerings of coins into large boxes placed before the gilded and carved altar.

We walked through the hustle-bustle, then departed the temple grounds for a walk around the neighborhood, which was much quieter, with tree-lined streets and many shops selling the bits and pieces for traditional outfits for men and women—kimono, obi, happi jackets, tabi socks, hair ornaments, and hakama (traditional wide-legged trousers for men).

Making our way down narrow streets to the nearby Sumida River, we walked along the tree-lined and landscaped banks to the water bus stands, where we boarded a tourist cruise for the short trip down the river, passing under many bridges along the way, and stopping in briefly at the Hama-rikyu Gardens once again.

Disembarking, we walked back to the train station, where we braved the afternoon rush hour to return to the hotel. At this point, we’d been walking around for about nine hours, and we were fairly footsore, so instead of venturing out, we elected to try one of the restaurants located in the basement of the high-rise where the hotel is located.

We found a noodle-and-sake restaurant favored by businessmen, and enjoyed a very nice meal of soba, thin buckwheat noodles in dark, salty broth, served with various accompaniments. The waiter suggested a nice sake alongside the soba, and we had it served cold rather than hot.