Ken's Travel Diary: Tsukiji Fish Market

I finished work around 4:45am and walked back to my flat. I got changed, watched a bit of TV and then went out at around 5:45, taking a taxi over to the Tsukiji fish market. It's in every guidebook as a place you should go, so I thought since I was up at the time when it is best, I should go. The taxi dropped me off opposite some shops and I crossed the road and walked around. There was a sort of grid system with shops selling all sorts of food, but surprisingly little fish. I was a bit confused, so I wandered into what seemed to be a car park and turned out to be a route down to the main part of the fish market.

All over the place are motorised buggies that the fish and other produce are transported on. They whizz around and it's pretty hard to avoid getting hit by them. I wandered around for a while before I found the main curving building of the Tsukiji market. I had been quite impressed by the seafood I had seen already, but nothing prepared me for the main market building. It is HUGE - if you know the Smithfield market buildings in London - about two and a half times the size of those buildings, and the area of the market itself is about twice as much as the New Covent Garden food market by Vauxhall station.

Every kind of fish, shellfish, and seaweed can be found in there. There's little point in trying to describe it - the pictures do a much better job. Every morning there are tuna auctions which unfortunately are no longer open to the public. You can see the tuna that have been bought being cut up and prepared around the market though.