One of the things recommended was the live tuna auction at the Tsukiji Fish Market. Only 120 visitors are able to view the auction on any given day. In order to be one of the few, it also means getting there early to lineup and wait. We still had the time difference on our side, so getting up at 2:00am wasn’t as bad as it sounds. Gillian, Shanna and I headed out from the hotel, Susan was the smart one choosing to sleep. It’s quite the process, first you line up outside and then they bring you into a waiting area, where you sit on the floor to wait. They hand you a flyer with the do’s and don’ts for observing. When it comes time to go, they lead you through the active fish market and into the auction area. The auction starts at 6:00am.

The tuna buyers check out all of the frozen tuna up for auction.

The final tuna auction at the Tsukiji market was on October 6, 2018. The fish market was originally schedule to close in 2016, but was delayed many times. The area will be levelled and used for the upcoming Olympic Games in 2020. The new market is called the Toyosu market and is about 2km east of the current market.

The auction starts with the ringing of a bell.

The bidding starts.

We were only in there for about 15-20 minutes before our time is up and they herd us out.

Today was our first travel day, we were heading to Hakone by Shinkansen (bullet train), train, and then cable car. We purchased a 14 day rail pass. it was pretty cool riding the bullet train.

Hakone is located at the foot of Mt. Fuji, unfortunately our weather for our two days in the area looked like this, and therefore no views of Fuji.

We purchased the Hakone Free Pass. After the shinkansen, we transferred at Odawara to a train which climbed the mountainous area via a bunch of switchbacks.

To get to our hotel we took the cable car. We stayed at Yutorelo Annex Hakone, this was a traditional Japanese style accommodation with an onsen.

We headed to the Hakone Glass Museum.

The Glass no Mori’s Venetian Glass Museum houses a collection of over 100 pieces of Venetian glassware. It displays both modern and classical works in all forms including vases, goblets, lamps and sculptures.