On the first day I was not working, we decided to go to the Tokyo Fish Market - one of the places that we have been recommended to visit by many people. But everyone said you had to get there very early - well before 6:00 AM - if you wanted to see anything interesting. (the fish market can be seen in the movie Jiro Dreams of Sushi, which I would highly recommend for anyone who likes to eat)
We were still both suffering from a bit of jet lag, so we decided early Friday morning that this would be a good visit. So we rousted ourselves out of bed and walked the mile or so from the hotel to the market.
I am not sure what those signs said, but nothing deterred us on our visit:
As you can see from above, it just looks like a big parking lot. We didn't even really know where to enter, but as we got near the structure above, you could smell fish.
We walked in, and started seeing things like this:
We knew we were in the right place.
It started to get much more crowded, and we saw hundreds and hundreds of Styrofoam boxes filled with ice, water, and fish. Doreen read that Narita airport (where most US-Tokyo flights land) is now the biggest fish port in the world, as most of Japan's fish is now flown there instead of coming in via ship.
We felt as if we were going to get run down by men on little stand up, LP powered carts (image later) that run up and down these narrow aisles without regard to life or limb:
What we really wanted to see was the tuna auction.
And we saw some of this beautiful red tuna (it looked like beef) in some display cases:
and we finally saw a big tuna being wheeled away:
We knew we were on the right track.
There was plenty more to see in the small fish department before we got to the tuna:
I think these are Dover Sole:
and these little red guys with the big eyes I believe we call Red Mullet in the US (rouget in French):
We kept seeing more tuna, so we knew we were heading for the font of all tuna in Japan:
and more:
you can see Doreen's head below as the aisles get bigger to accommodate the carts:
There was plenty of tuna frozen solid:
I think most of this comes from the Mediterranean.
We had just walked into the auction hall when a security guard jumped in front of me gesticulating and pointing that we were not allowed in there.
He even blocked my photo of the fish!
They walked us out past the auction floor, but I was able to keep snapping photos.
Not very good photos:
I didn't even notice the sign on the right (DO NOT ENTER) until I looked at the photos:
I would have loved to get closer to these fish:
I do not understand how they can decide on the quality of the frozen fish.
But there was a lot of activity going on there. To some degree, I can understand that they don't want tourists wandering about the market. But the books we had (purchased this year) said nothing about the markets being off limits before 9:00 AM. As I mentioned above, they specifically recommended that you get there early.
We were still both suffering from a bit of jet lag, so we decided early Friday morning that this would be a good visit. So we rousted ourselves out of bed and walked the mile or so from the hotel to the market.
I am not sure what those signs said, but nothing deterred us on our visit:
As you can see from above, it just looks like a big parking lot. We didn't even really know where to enter, but as we got near the structure above, you could smell fish.
We walked in, and started seeing things like this:
We knew we were in the right place.
It started to get much more crowded, and we saw hundreds and hundreds of Styrofoam boxes filled with ice, water, and fish. Doreen read that Narita airport (where most US-Tokyo flights land) is now the biggest fish port in the world, as most of Japan's fish is now flown there instead of coming in via ship.
We felt as if we were going to get run down by men on little stand up, LP powered carts (image later) that run up and down these narrow aisles without regard to life or limb:
What we really wanted to see was the tuna auction.
And we saw some of this beautiful red tuna (it looked like beef) in some display cases:
and we finally saw a big tuna being wheeled away:
We knew we were on the right track.
There was plenty more to see in the small fish department before we got to the tuna:
I think these are Dover Sole:
and these little red guys with the big eyes I believe we call Red Mullet in the US (rouget in French):
We kept seeing more tuna, so we knew we were heading for the font of all tuna in Japan:
and more:
you can see Doreen's head below as the aisles get bigger to accommodate the carts:
There was plenty of tuna frozen solid:
I think most of this comes from the Mediterranean.
We had just walked into the auction hall when a security guard jumped in front of me gesticulating and pointing that we were not allowed in there.
He even blocked my photo of the fish!
They walked us out past the auction floor, but I was able to keep snapping photos.
Not very good photos:
I didn't even notice the sign on the right (DO NOT ENTER) until I looked at the photos:
I would have loved to get closer to these fish:
I do not understand how they can decide on the quality of the frozen fish.
But there was a lot of activity going on there. To some degree, I can understand that they don't want tourists wandering about the market. But the books we had (purchased this year) said nothing about the markets being off limits before 9:00 AM. As I mentioned above, they specifically recommended that you get there early.
I have a couple more shots that I will post later.
We were back in our hotel room before 7:00 AM.
We were back in our hotel room before 7:00 AM.
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