Countries Of My Life: Shopping Tour in Asakusa

Chinese Acrobats
always impressive ^^

The plan at this day was to meet in Futakotamagawa to go shopping, because it was Jasmines last day in Japan and she still needed soooo many things :D

The whole family Maruta was so nice and brought me by car, because they also wanted to go shopping. We were a bit early, so Mr. Maruta, Riku-kun (son) and me walked a bit near the train station.There we saw a performance from Chinese acrobats, which was impressing. Especially the fact how far they can control their bodies and keep up the body tension. That reminds me, I have to train ;)

After this we finally met with Jasmine-san, Tsubasa-san and Risako-san. They had a looong discussion about how Jasmine get to the airport the next day and it took a while. Women ... ;)
The question was solved and Jasmine-san, Risako-san and me went to Asakusa. At this point I have to admit that there was a misunderstanding from my side, because I thought we would go shopping in Futakotamagawa, so did Maruta-san and his family. Unfortunately they had now to stay because they came by car. Sorry for that :(

Asakusa - The 1st street

Katana Umbrella
the coolest souvenir of Japan?

But anyway, the three of us took the train to Asakusa. There we went to the famous temple Sensou-Ji. But before you get there, you have to go to a looong but beautiful street with many shops for gifts, souvenirs, food and so on. Here I got my coolest souvenir to this point, a Katana Umbrella :D It looks so cool as it sounds ;)

After more (window-)shopping, we arrived at the temple. Fascinating to get there at night because many stores were already closed, so there weren't many people and it was quite peaceful. But still there was a long line for praying in front of the (now closed) temple. After taking many pictures and a bit resting, we went the rest of the time for a bit sightseeing in the streets.

The Long Shopping Street in front of the Temple

Evening but still a long queue oO

Jasmine reminded me at this time I told her that I finally wanted to eat Sushi in Japan. Until this point I hadn't even try oO And just minutes after we spoke about that, a magical flyer of a Sushi restaurant nearby dropped from the sky into my hands while glowing. Or a man advertising the restaurant gave it to me, I don't really remember. To be honest, I like the first idea the most :D

Sushi always tastes better with friends ^^

Anyway, this was the first time I got an actual useful flyer, because the restaurant was just on the other side of the street and with this flyer everyone of us got a free drink. Long story short: It was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo delicious, it's really hard to find the right words. While eating or better saying being in heaven, I came up with some reasons why Japanese Sushi is sooo much better than the German one I knew, which is good by the way:

Sushi made and ate in Japan

1) The fish is more fresh in Japan because of the geological position. The Sushi I ate here hadn't this typical fish taste which is a bit like the smell of the fish itself from what I've know. In this special case, we were also lucky that we were in a restaurant where the fish used to be alive in water tanks right before you get them. One hint for that was also the menu card. There were the usual Sushi advertised as fresh and the Premium Sushi was advertised with a word that you can translate to "alive". We didn't take the "alive" Sushi, so I can only image how this could have tasted .... ;)

Because it's so tasty, a Close-Up :)

Do I look hungry?

2) In Japan they use more fish. In Germany the piece of fish per Sushi is much smaller, so you have a different ratio of rice and fish. And obviously, when I eat Sushi, I want to taste fish, not rice.

3) Japan has much more kinds of fish to choose from. For Sushi, the fish has to be fresh, otherwise you get health problems. And because of the location you can get the fish from Pacific Ocean really fast to the restaurants. Germany has just the North and East Sea which have not this much different kinds of fish. Or they use frozen fish, but this destroy the cells partly, so the consistence and the taste of the fish is worse.

Looks like from an advertisment ;)
But actually you get it that way ^^

In summary: I have to eat more often Sushi here, that's clear :D
And next time, I will also try the Sushi from the small shops (Konbini). I never tried them because I wouldn't eat some packaged Sushi, but here I think I can give it a try. When I'm in the hospital next time, I can give you an exclusive look into the Japanese Health Care System ;)

And so came a great day to an end ...