Once again, I was in Tokyo for a business trip in January for a week. It was a good trip, both in terms of the trip itself and for business. Didn't have much time to play tourist but we did manage to go to the Tsukiji Fish Market early morning on Friday and got some great pics. First off though, here are the pictures of the Shinagawa train station that was right across the street from our hotel and a picture of the Hanzomon Gate right by the Tokyo tower.
Here are also 2 panorama shots of the view outside of my hotel room. The Shinagawa area doesn't have as many sky scrapers as certain other parts of Tokyo but you can still see how big the place is...and this is just a teeeeny part of the big city.
Click on the thumbnail for a full size pic and the link for a smaller one
And now for the fish market!!!
The Tsukiji Fish Market is the world's largest fish market where over 2000 TONS of fish are sold every single day except Sunday. It's open from around 5am and almost all of the fish will be sold off to wholesellers and restaurants by noon. Unbelievable.
We got there around 5:30am and already little motorized carts were zipping along and the place was in full swing. If you're not careful, they'll simply run over you. This place is for business, not for tourists, but from the looks of it, everyone is used to the gaijins walking around the place.
Here you can see what the market is like. Even though the place is entirely filled with fish, it's so fresh there's barely any smell. Proof that when they say fresh fish doesn't have a "fishy" smell, they're telling the truth. There are also stands outside of the place selling stuff including this stand that's selling some beautiful high quality knives for a variety of uses.
Basically, anything that was swimming in the sea that got caught you can probably find here. Though the fish here are usually dead or at least in the process of getting killed, in terms of variety, it can rival most aquariums. You'll see everything from the poisonous puffer fish, sea cucumbers, live scallops, and weird looking fishes that I've never ever seen before.
Of course, the main attraction here is the tuna auction. At certain times through the morning, the gigantic blue fin tuna will be auctioned off. They can buy them fresh (more expensive) or completely frozen and each one weighs many hundreds of pounds.
Depending on the size and quality of the fish, each fish can go for upwards of $7000 US dollars and will then be immediately cut into different grades of meat. O-toro for the absolute best part for sashimi where the fat is marbled into the meat giving it a creamy texture and the best flavor. The Chu-toro where the fat is not as marbled but is still a premium slice of sashimi. And finally the standard maguro which is what you will find in most US markets and will make a typical sashimi and is good for the standard tuna steaks.
Here you can see the auction area with buyers inspecting the fish, doing taste tests and determining the worth.
The auction itself is fast and, to most of us, even the Japanese, confusing... The auctioneer will stand on a stool and start hopping while yelling out rhythmically what I assume to be the prices...but, just like the American livestock auctions, you can't understand a word that he is saying. However at certain times, he'll pause just a bit to clue us into the fact that a fish just got sold for thousands of dollars
Once the fish is sold, either fresh or frozen, the are lifted up, mostly by 2 or 3 men with nasty looking steel hooks, and loaded up to be taken to the owner's stall to be cut up.
If the fish is frozen, it will be expertly cut by a guy using a table saw...like the kind you see at Home Depot. But with extreme accuracy and it's actually really neat to watch
However, the best part is watching an expert butcher cut, by hand, a fresh tuna. He uses a variety of knives, some longer than a standard katana (and probably sharper too) and, mostly on his own, will beautifully fillet the tuna and cut the various grades of meat out. Only when he has to cut straight across the fish along the spine will he have help. You have to understand that the tuna that this guy here is working on probably weighs over 300+ pounds.
Overall, it was a fantasic experience and anyone who will ever go to Tokyo should wake up early one morning (if you're suffereing from jet lag, that should not be a problem) and go. Also, you can, like I did, have a sushi breakfast at one of the many small restaurants there for dirt cheap. I had the O-toro for only 600 yen. Usually they go for upwards of 2000 yen! And it was absolutely delicious. I'm going to be hard pressed to eat any sushi in the US now that I've had it as fresh as you can possibly have it. And if I ever go to Japan again with someone who's never been there, I'll be sure to take them there again. It's definitely an experience that everyone, whether they like fish or not, should have!