Tsukiji

Gotanda Station. The Yamanote (Circle) Line was empty. A sight I’ve never seen before. The reason?

It was 4:30 am, and I was on my way to Tsukiji; the world’s largest fish market. Pretty tired but excited about what lay ahead, I knew that it could either be a great experience or a complete wash-out.

I was warned by many websites that for the last two years the main attraction, being the tuna auction, has been closed to the public. It’s important to keep in mind whilst reading that the word ‘attraction’ is almost the antithesis to what it should really be. Tsukiji is not an official tourist spot; people are trying to do their jobs whilst onlookers are using flash photography, getting in the way and generally distracting the process.

We walked out of Tsukiji station in the pitch black and relied on the sense of busy-ness and noise to guide us to the right place. Turning a few corners, we were confronted by hundreds of lorries and crates. Between them were fishermen racing around on small trucks, operated by huge turn-wheels. They were hurtling about at such a speed, and didn’t look willing to slow down for anyone. I wasn’t prepared to find out.


Behind the freight area was the wholesale market; lines and lines of stalls and boxes. People laying all kinds of fish out, in bulk packages. This was all covered and narrow, so it was pretty dark and claustrophobic. I was expecting an overwhelming smell but there was none so I guess it’s true that fresh fish is odourless. However, there was a lot of bloody ice around.


At the far end of the market was a big room; the size of an inside sports court. To me, it initially appeared hectic, chaotic, frenetic but on second glance, it all fit into place. Men were shouting numbers, while others were checking out the humungous tuna on display, while others were ringing bells, others were carrying tuna on the rather scary looking scythes they all carried*, and others were painting marks or sticking receipts onto the already sold fish. You can see the use of their tools when moving the fish.




The fish were selling for millions each – about £15,000 on average – but it depended where they were from. For example, tuna from the sea around Japan was the most expensive, but even those from as far as Mexico and Italy were going for not much less. Here are some workers struggling to move a ridiculously huge – and crowd favourite – tuna.



There weren’t many tourists, maybe about 20, but it was almost impossible to ‘close’ the auction to us, as it was just another area of the market. Everyone was pretty respectful and stayed back, although we took a few pictures to put the tuna size into perspective.



After watching the せり (seri, auction) I was feeling so awake and pumped full of adrenaline. However, I’m not sure I could wake up at 2am everyday to trade in fish; after all, we only arrived at 5:30 am when the auction took place. A lot of arrivals and set-up occurred much earlier than that.


We walked around the market looking at the weird and wonderful, and normal, fish. Some I still have no idea about.





The tuna that had just been bought was in its next stage; the cutting down to size.


You call that a knife; this is a knife! (You can see the trucks in the background)

They even had whale for sale:

The sun finally started coming up, and everything looked a lot less intimidating. Almost as if they were allergic to the sun, the bustling calmed down around the same time, and the place seemed a lot calmer.

We went to the beginning of the market, to try breakfast at one of the famous sushi restaurants. Although they are crazy expensive, it could be a once in a lifetime experience and worth it, although the (violently-)niggling gut reaction of “It’s 7:30 am, you can’t eat toast let alone raw fish!” was being held down. That and the long queues - sometimes up to a few hours - for each restaurant.

Not having to wait too long, we chose Sushi Daiwa (寿司大和 – sushi big taste) as it’s the most famous. Breakfast was amazing – for £15 each we had 7 pieces of sushi, 6 rolled in seaweed pieces, miso soup and green tea. I was also offered beer, which I laughed at the prospect of. Until I noticed nearly every other customer drinking!

The place was tiny, and each guest(s) were looked after by a chef. We sat halfway down the counter. I’d never seen this style of sushi preparation before. The chef would clump a handful of rice together, put some fish and wasabi (horseradish-strength) on top and place it in front of you straight onto the counter. A very basic eating style complimented by highly regarded cuisine. The ultra-fresh tuna was outstanding but the other stuff was a bit too much for me to stomach, so Keiko ate quite a bit of my stuff – I did try everything though including, for the first time, sea urchin. Very sweet, but sticky. I couldn’t take photos, but managed this sneaky one, although someone got a decent clip on YouTube.


Afterwards, the sun was beating down, and we walked around the outer market, which had more fish, but also a flower as well as vegetable section. On the other side was Tsukiji Temple. It looked so out of place in Tokyo, being better suited to Paris or Rome.





It was in fact a Buddhist refuge, prayer hall and mausoleum, but famous for its large auditorium where many people come to (and it was evident) sleep. Luckily, we arrived at 7am, right when the morning service was taking place. I felt so lucky to stumble upon this new and desired sight; another Lost In Translation moment. It was very interesting, but again did nothing for me spiritually. We went downstairs to see the ‘places of interest’ but it looked like something out of a horror movie so we were soon on our way.

We took the train from Shimbashi – the area I previously described as future world – and arrived back in Gotanda about 8:30am. It was surreal because we arrived at the peak of rush hour, albeit we had been up for a good four hours already.

The rest of the day involved sleeping, eating lunch and watching The 40 Year Old Virgin (pretty good, but turn it off 5 minutes before the end), more sleeping, a bit more sleeping, the gym and then more sleeping.

Just as an afterthought I want to add that there are hygiene inspectors constantly scouring the area, and the whole place is deserted by 1pm every day, when it is sanitised.

An unbelievable experience!

*a good deterrent to stay back