Even more species hunting adventures in Japan: Tokyo.

The following morning, we caught our last shinkansen of the trip and headed back to Tokyo, where we'd spend the last couple of days before flying home. On the way there, we passed the magnificent Mount Fuji. Taking dozens of photos as we sped by, I managed to capture one or two that did not have a blurred object in the foreground. No mean feat when you're travelling at such incredible speed!

Ryan said he’d love to climb Mount Fuji one day. I'm not sure if it's something I'm as keen to do. Better to admire the mountain from a distance!

For the last part of our trip we were staying in the “lively” Kabukicho area, near Shinjuku, so when we arrived in Tokyo we caught a train to Shinjuku Station, the busiest station in the world. Navigating around it can be challenging, even for locals, but eventually we found our way to the exit we wanted and made our way to our accommodation. Dropping our luggage off at our apartment, we weren’t allowed to actually check in for a few more hours, so we went for a big bowl of ramen, and then spent a couple of hours exploring some shops around Shinjuku.

I had spicy tonkotsu ramen with extra charred pork. It was so good!

Heading back to the apartment, we checked in and had an afternoon nap. It turns out that combining a massive bowl of ramen with shopping can be quite tiring! In the evening, we walked to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, where we lay on some artificial turf in front of it and watched the impressive TOKYO Night & Light show being projected onto the front of the building. Afterwards, we went up to the free observation deck at the top of the building to enjoy some nighttime views of the megacity.

There were several different light shows, including this Pac-Man themed one. I remember playing the game on my Atari 2600 back in the early eighties!

Tokyo after dark.

Next, we headed off to enjoy some sushi and washed it down with a few beers in preparation for a late night karaoke session. The sushi was excellent, but it was a dish that was suggested to us by Xin Yun that took me by surprise.

Chawanmushi is a savoury egg custard dish. This one was topped with salmon roe and an egg yolk. It was so rich and creamy!

Ryan, Lillian and I ended up drinking way too much and murdering various songs until the early hours of the morning. Xin Yun was much more sensible with her alcohol consumption and was a much better singer.

The next morning, Lillian and I felt a little bit rough and had a lie in. Ryan and Xin Yun got up early and headed out to visit the teamLab Planets digital museum. When Lillian and I did finally get up and left the apartment, we visited a rooftop garden and then the huge Don Quijote in Shinjuku where we did some shopping. Afterwards, we jumped on a train and headed to the Ichigaya Fishing Centre to see if I could add a species or two to my tally for the trip.

Located right next to Ichigaya Station, the centre offers fun fishing for carp as well as a few other species.

All tackle is provided, although it is pretty basic and designed to easily land fish rather than catch them in the first place. The lines are heavy, the hooks are big, and the pellets provided were breaking up very easily, making getting one on the hook very tricky. I started off targeting goldfish in an indoor pond. Luckily, there were a couple of kernels of corn in my pot of pellets, so I used a small piece of one on the point of my hook to successfully catch a few.

Catching goldfish in the centre's indoor pond was a little trickier than I thought it would be.

Next, I spend a short time targeting whitespotted char in one of the centre's outdoor ponds. The rod supplied for this was a bit heavier and a small bobber was attached to the line. Feeding in some pellets, I quickly noticed that the fish were much more comfortable taking them as they fell through the water. Carefully putting a pellet on my hook and lowering it slowly down through the water, trying to match the sink rate of the free offerings, did the trick, and a fish charged up and snatched it almost straight away. All fish had to be retained, so I gave mine to a local angler who hadn’t caught one.

The whitespotted char was a nice looking fish. Would this be my final fish and new species of the trip?

After treating ourselves to a late lunch in Mos Burger, Lillian and I jumped on the train and headed back to the apartment. Still feeling a little bit rough, we had a nap. In the evening, feeling refreshed, the four of us visited an offal hotpot restaurant nearby. As if eating various organs wasn't adventurous enough, Ryan ordered some pig's ears and feet as a starter. I tried both, but much preferred the tasty hotpot!

The next day, Ryan and Xin Yun went to do some last minute shopping for gifts to take home. Lillian and I headed north by train, so I could try fishing in the Kanda River, but the section we explored turned out to be more of a concrete drainage ditch and there was no sign of any fish in it. In the afternoon, after making our way to Yoyogi Park and walking through it, we met up with Ryan and Xin Yun again at Meiji Jingu Shrine, and then we headed to nearby Takeshita Street.

The beautiful wooden Ichino Torii Gate at Meiji Jingu Shrine stands twelve meters tall!

Over a hundred consecrated sake barrels near the entrance to Meiji Jingu Shrine make for an interesting and colourful photo opportunity.

Takeshita Street had some cool shops, but it was absolutely rammed!

Moving along in the dense crowd, we had a look in a few shops before stumbling across a capybara café. We were surprised to find out that a booking wasn’t required, so we decided to go in. Capybara are Xin Yun’s favourite animal, so she was very excited to get up close to them.

Capybara are the largest rodent in the world. It was pretty cool to see one up close and be able to feed and pet one.

Just a little further along Takeshita Street we arrived at an otter café. Otters are one of my favourite animals, so we decided to visit that as well. The capybara experience had been was very peaceful, and relaxing. The otter experience, was by comparison, pretty chaotic! About twenty otters in a room with about a dozen people and a staff member giving them treats was absolute carnage. They were clambering all over everyone to get their snacks!

Even cuter than the capybara in my opinion, they looked very innocent, but went slightly crazy when they were about to be given a few treats.

As it started to get dark, we left the crowded Takeshita Street and slowly made our way south to visit Shibuya Scramble Crossing. Not satisfied with petting a capybara and having otters climbing all over her, Lillian wanted to see a famous dog as well.

Being the busiest crossing in the world, Shibuya Crossing is visited by millions of tourists, which helps make it the busiest crossing in the world!

This statue is Hachiko, a famously loyal Japanese Akita dog who, after his owner's death, continued to wait for him at Shibuya Station every day for nearly ten years until his own life ended. Basically, the Japanese Greyfriar's Bobby!

Before heading back to the apartment to pack our cases, we enjoyed some delicious sushi in Shibuya. Heading back to Kabukicho, we happened to be passing the famous Godzilla statue just as he was doing his hourly light and smoke show.

Godzilla on the rampage. Again!

So, the end of our trip had pretty much arrived, and early the next day we'd be leaving Japan again. We’d all had a great time, but the end of such a fantastic adventure is always tinged with a little bit of sadness. No more heated toilet seats. No more shinkansen. No more train station jingles. No more famichiki! Japan is an amazing place, and it's strange what you miss when you leave it.

Lillian and I enjoyed travelling with Ryan, he was great company and was open-minded about trying new things. We loved seeing his reactions as he experienced some of the weird and wonderful things that Japan has to offer for the very first time. It had also been lovely to meet Xin Yun as well. 

Early in the morning, we began our journeys home. Ryan, Lillian and I said goodbye to Xin Yun as the monorail reached Haneda Airport, as her flight back to Singapore was leaving from a different terminal to ours. Our fourteen-hour flight back to Heathrow was followed by an eight-hour drive back up the road to Edinburgh. I'm not sure that I would do that again, I really struggled doing the driving as I was so tired, but a few breaks to stretch my legs, and a few cans of highly caffeinated drinks kept me awake! Being back in cold, wet and miserable Scotland has been quite tough, but writing this series of posts has helped enormously with my post Japan trip depression! Lillian and I love visiting Japan, and I’m pretty sure we will return again in the future.

On the species hunting front, Ryan and I had been quite successful. The fishing in major cities on the mainland and on Okinawa was quite a contrast, with the majority of the one hundred and two species Ryan and I caught between us, coming during our five days on the tropical island.

Here's a list of the species I caught, with new ones in bold...

1. Anchor Tuskfish
2. Barhead Spinefoot
3. Batu Rainbow Wrasse
4. Bignose Unicornfish
5. Black and Gold Chromis
6. Black Damselfish
7. Black Seabream
8. Blackbelly Triggerfish
9. Blackspot Sergeant
10. Blackstripe Cardinalfish
11. Bluegill
12. Blunt Snout Gregory
13. Brown Dottyback
14. Brown-lined Puffer
15. Campbell’s Goby
16. Common Carp
17. Crested Grunter
18. Cupid Wrasse
19. Cylindrical Sandperch
20. Dark Chub
21. Dory Snapper
22. Dusky Farmerfish
23. Finepatterned Puffer
24. Fire-tail Dottyback
25. Five-lined Cardinalfish
26. Fork-tongued Goby
27. Goldfish
28. Grass Carp
29. Grass Puffer
30. Half-barred Cardinalfish
31. Halfmoon Triggerfish
32. Honey-head Damsel
33. Honeycomb Filefish
34. Honeycomb Grouper
35. Indo-Pacific Sergeant
36. Iridescent Cardinalfish
37. Japanese Horse Mackerel
38. Japanese Sardinella
39. Japanese Seabass
40. Japanese Whiting
41. Kupang Cardinalfish
42. Lemon Damsel
43. Manybar Goatfish
44. Marbled Rockfish
45. Monogrammed Monocle Bream
46. Multicolorfin Rainbowfish
47. Narrowstripe Cardinalfish
48. Nile Tilapia
49. Oblong Rockfish
50. Okinawa Sergeant
51. Orange-lined Triggerfish
52. Oriental Butterflyfish
53. Pacific Dusky Wrasse
54. Pastel Ringwrasse
55. Pennant Coralfish
56. Pinecone Soldierfish
57. Pink-belly Wrasse
58. Red Naped Wrasse
59. Red Seabream
60. Redbellied Yellowtail Fusilier
61. Redcoat
62. Sapphire Devil
63. Saw-jawed Monocle Bream
64. Scissortail Seargant
65. Scrawled Filefish
66. Sixbar Wrasse
67. Staghorn Damselfish
68. Streamlined Spinefoot
69. Striped Large-eye Bream
70. Striped Monocle Bream
71. Threadfin Butterflyfish
72. Threespot Wrasse
73. Thumbprint Emperor
74. Titan Triggerfish
75. Tomato Clownfish
76. Undescribed Damselfish
77. Vagabond Butterflyfish
78. Valentin’s Sharpnose Puffer
79. Variegated Lizardfish
80. Vermiculate Angelfish
81. Whitebanded Triggerfish
82. Whitespotted Char
83. Whitespotted Devil
84. Whitetail Damselfish
85. Yellowfin Surgeonfish
86. Yellowtail Emperor

Ryan also caught these species...

87. Barred Thicklip
88. Blackeye Thicklip
89. Cigar Wrasse
90. Common Ponyfish
91. Freshwater Demoiselle
92. Ochre-striped Cardinalfish
93. Red-Eyed Puffer
94. Reef Triggerfish
95. Samurai Squirrelfish
96. Shorthead Sabertooth Blenny
97. Stocky Hawkfish
98. Sunset Wrasse
99. Undescribed Damselfish
100. Whitesaddle Goatfish
101. Yellowtail Clownfish
102. Yellowtail Sergeant

All in all, the time we spent species hunting had been very productive, despite some challenging weather on Okinawa. Of the species I caught, forty-one of them were new to me, which was great.

I need to get out fishing back here, but Storm Bram is currently battering large parts of the UK with heavy rain and strong winds. I've not been fishing since I got back from Japan, hopefully the weather calms down soon, so that I can maybe get out after dark to try and catch some rockling! Being honest, once the winter kicks in properly, I don't think I'll be fishing that much locally. I think another foreign adventure might be on the cards before the arrival of spring!

Tight lines, Scott.

Acknowledgments:

I'd like to thank the species hunting community on Instagram for their advice on fishing various venues around Japan before the trip. It was very useful!

In particular, I'd like to thank fellow species hunter Daiki for his invaluable help. He offered advice on the best places to try for certain species, and also helped me to identify some of the fish I'd caught. Maybe, in the future, I'll be able to reciprocate if he ever comes to Scotland!

Species hunting fun in Japan : Tokyo.

Last month I visited Japan for a three week long adventure with my partner Lillian. It goes without saying we were incredibly excited about visiting somewhere so far away, visiting lots of interesting and beautiful places, enjoying lots of tasty and weird food and emersing ourselves in a culture that's so different to our own back in the UK. Obviously I was also looking forward to doing the odd bit of fishing as well but with so much to see and do I was realistic about how much I'd be able to squeeze in.

I suffer from gout and during the night before we flew out I woke up and felt the first signs of an attack developing in my right knee. It's a horrible condition that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Luckily it didn't flare up properly until we reached Japan as the long journey there would have been a nightmare if it had happened twenty four hours earlier. The subsequent inflammation and associated pain in the joint reduced my mobility and slowed down our adventure for the first few days but despite finding walking difficult and at times painful I soldiered on, hobbling along as fast as I could around our first destination on the trip, the mega city of Tokyo.

Tokyo is massive. We went up to the observation deck of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building near our hotel to take a look. The city extends as far as the eye can see. In every direction. Tokyo is mind bogglingly massive.

Staying in Shinjuku we used the metro to visit a few places of interest nearby while my knee was a problem. On the to way to Shinjuku station we spotted this infamous mutated dinosaur doing what it's infamous for, attacking Tokyo.

Godzilla on the rampage.

It might be a sprawling metropolis but Tokyo also has many beautiful parks where you can get away from the crowds. We visited the Meiji Shrine and it's gardens early one morning before the bulk of tourists arrived and it was blissfully quiet.

Meiji Shrine is a Shinto shrine dedicated to the deified spirits of Emperor Meiji and his wife, Empress Shōken. It is situated in a beautiful park the has hundreds of different species of trees planted throughout.

The Japanese visit the shrine to make an offering and pray.

After leaving the shrine we visited it's nearby gardens where there were some impressive Bonsai trees...

...and a pond full of Koi carp. If I'd had some tackle with me I may have been tempted.

On day three Lillian assured me she'd found a place where I could do some fishing in the sea. We caught a couple of trains and headed to DiverCity Tokyo Plaza shopping centre. After some lunch there we headed to the fishing spot, the Seaside Park in Odaiba, passing a huge statue of the mecha Gundam, a massive robot fighting suit, on the way.

The Japanese don't do things by halves. At just under 20m tall the statue was pretty impressive.

Sadly when we got to the fishing spot it was quite small being restricted to a few areas. As is usually the case the best looking bits where we spotted some large seabream swimming around and a stingray feeding in the shallows were off limits. I had a go in the area where fishing was permitted but it was pretty shallow and I didn't catch anything.

By this stage my knee was begining to feel a bit better and I was desperate to catch some fish so a short visit to Ishigaya Fishing Centre was squeezed in between some delicious lunch in a small sushi bar and a walk around the Imperial Palace gardens.

Tackle, including a bamboo rod, as well as a ball of paste for bait was provided.

The pond was well stocked, catching fish was incredibly easy and I quickly got bored of catching carp. The same carp (Cyprinus Carpio) that we have in the UK. If I'm honest it was a bit dissapointing that the first fish I had caught on the trip was something I can catch back home.

On the morning of our last day in Tokyo we visited Tsukiji fish market for some tasty street food before we visited the Wakasu Seaside Park Fishing Facilities near the Tokyo Gate Bridge for a second attempt at catchig something from the sea. It's a very long breakwater and as its name suggestes it's dedicated to use by anglers. It was very busy when we arrived but despite being lined with anglers none of them seemed to be catching anything. Unfortunately I didn't do any better and when it started raining after an hour or so I admitted defeat.

Our time in Tokyo had come to an end. Despite the discomfort caused by my inflamed knee we'd had a great time exploring a tiny fraction of the massive city. I hadn't done that much fishing and what I'd managed to do had been pretty dissapointing but there was plenty of time left to do some more and I was sure I'd soon catch my first new species.

Tight lines, Scott.

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