40-The One Thing This Room Couldn’t Give Me
Still, there was one dissatisfaction I couldn’t ignore.
No matter how many chairs I brought in,no matter how many tools I lined up on the shelves, there was a problem this room could not solve:
Location.
This classroom was not in what we call Edomae.
It wasn’t near Tsukiji.
From here, it took about 30 minutes just to go there and back for ingredients.
Since the beginning, my vision for the sushi class had always come as a set:
Learn real Edomae techniques
Share them with overseas guests
And eventually…
run the class near Tsukiji,
in the very area historically known as “in front of Edo”.
I wanted my guests not only to hear stories about Edomae,but to feel, in their bodies,what it means to walk the same streets and shop at the same kind of market that fed the original Edomae sushi stalls.
This first classroom couldn’t give me that.
It was a starting point, not a final destination.
So I made peace with a contradiction:
For now, I would teach here.
One day, I would move closer to the true Edomae.
This old room was my first stage.
Tsukiji would be my second.
I didn’t know when,
I didn’t know how,
but I knew this:
Just as the empty room next door had once felt impossible and then became mine,someday,
a space near Tsukiji—
in the heart of Edomae—
would open its doors to me too.
And when that day came, I wanted to already be the kind of teacher
who deserved to stand behind that counter.