Tokyo Tower

We were up early this morning to visit Tsukiji fish market which Laura had told us was her favourite memory from when she visited Tokyo a few years ago. There's a famous action held every morning where sellers bids high amounts on the first tuna of the day for good luck.

It was fun looking at all the weird and wonderful sea creatures that we had never seen before but the market was a scary place to be, with little forklift trucks racing around everywhere.

I was terrified we were going to get hit by someone but they seemed very used to dodgy the tourists.

After the stress of dodgy trucks, we were relieved and excited to sit down at one of the market restaurant sand tuck in to some super fresh sushi.

We ordered some sashimi and egg omelette which came in giant bowls of rice. It was amazing how cheap the prices were.

Our next stop was the Tokyo Stock Exchange where you can take free tours of the building, visit the museum and even trade pretend stocks.

It was a really nice day, so we decided to head to a traditional Japanese tea house in Hamarikyu Gardens, which was so pretty and peaceful.

The tea house was on an island in the middle of a pond and we sat out on the deck. There were instructions on how to drink green tea correctly, such as which side of the cup you should drink out of, and we were being careful to follow them until a gust of wind blew the piece of paper away and ruined the whole thing.

The green tea tasted delicious and it was served with a really pretty mochi cake which looked like a rose. We took a walk around the park afterwards which was really pretty with cranes, birds and cats wandering around.

We couldn't come to Japan without visiting Hello Kitty so our next stop was Sanrio World in Ginza. It was the pinkest shop that I've ever been in and sold Hello Kitty everything, from sofas to toothbrushes. We settled for a Geisha kitty.

We were getting pretty hungry, so we attempted to make our way back to the restaurants we had found hidden away under the railway tracks the previous nights. After a little bit of hunting, and following our noses, we found them.

Each restaurant has a different speciality such as BBQ, meat or fish so we picked one specialising in seafood with strange sea creatures outside. I have no idea what the name of it was, so I'm glad we were able to check in.

The tables were made from old crates and the whole restaurant would rattle violently every time a Shinkansen train passed over top. It was so crazy, it felt like being on a movie set trying to be a traditional hole-in-the-wall Japanese restaurant.

We ordered a garlic tuna steak, noodles and tempura which came sizzling to our table. It was some of the best food I'd ever eaten.

As it was our last night in Japan, we decided to do the tourist thing and go up Tokyo Tower to take in the views of the city. Though the tower isn't as tall as The Skytree, we felt it was more of a classic landmark and we have a Nano Block version of it at home which Jenny sent us. It also has the cutest pair of mascots ever, though I'm not sure why one had a plaster on it's head.

The view from the top was fantastic and it was nice to get a sense of just how big Tokyo is. There were giant clusters of skyscrapers and buildings to be seen from every direction unlike most cities where you usually have one cluster.

There was a glass panel on the floor which you could stand on which was super scary. We treated ourselves to drinks and nibbles in the cafe while we waited for sunset.

We love to get our money out of landmarks by going up just before sunset so we can see the city during the day and night in one visit.

I managed to get a bunch of squished pennies on our way out and, because Japanese is so much cuter than everywhere else, they had purikura machines rather than the usual tacky photo setup for tourists so we got our photo taken.

Our final stop for the night was Don Quijote where we topped up on souvenirs and gifts to bring home for everyone. I could have filled another suitcase if I'd had the space.

I managed to get the cutest paper cut cat eyelashes for me and Laura, a bento box for my Mum and Kit Kats in all kinds of crazy flavours to bring back.