Last weekend i did the

Last weekend i did the ultimate in impulse travel -- i decided to spend a long weekend in tokyo (5 days actually). I went to visit Saya and her family, and also my friend Alan Tien who was on his way back from Shanghai and decided to stop over for his first visit to Japan.

Alan and I had a great time spending a few days on a "gaijin" weekend tour around Tokyo on the extensive subway system. Of course we went to Tsukiji Fish Market, which is one of the most unique tourist experiences you will ever have (read "Sashimi for Breakfast" for a taste). Every morning around 5am the tuna auction begins, amid an amazing amount of hustle & bustle from what appears to be every fisherman / seafood salesman in the greater tokyo area.

Check out this 360-degree zoom-in view of the Tsukiji tuna auction.

Here's a National Geographic picture of the Tsukiji auction floor, filled with Tuna:

After narrowly avoiding hundreds of guys madly driving around on motorized carts & trucks, tuna buyers swinging 2-foot long meat hooks into thousands of tuna, and one dude who nearly dumped a bucket full of live fish on Alan (there were about 20 of them flopping around in the middle of the aisle), we managed to escape with our lives to a nearby food stall and settle down to some sushi for breakfast.

Our second day was spent visiting Odaiba, an amusement park area south of Tokyo. We skipped the main kids attraction (something called "Aqua City"), and instead went to the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, which seemed like a pretty fun place for kids to do hands-on exploration of science... except that Alan and I couldn't speak much Japanese (gomen!).  So next we walked over to the Toyota Mega Web [japanese site] / [english site] (that's a place, not a website).  The Toyota Mega Web is sort of like a cross between your typical US Toyota dealership showroom and Universal Studios. Inside you can check out the history of Toyota car design, play race-car video games, watch a surround-screen movie / roller coaster, and even punch up a car from what has to be the world's largest vending machine (about 5 stories high, with over 40 models of cars to choose from). needless to say, the japanase are fascinated by automobiles ;)

Outside this mecca to Toyota, we got to ride Odaiba's "Dai Kanrasha", the world's biggest ferris wheel (115m), pictured here at night:

After all the excitement, it was great to go back home to my obaachan's (Saya's grandmother's house) to have a big dinner with the whole family. even though it was a very short trip it was great to be able to just hop on a plane, go 1/3 around the globe and spend some time with family and friends. amazing how small the world has become :)