Kenn and I woke up early on Saturday morning and made it to the fish market around 7:15am. It was after the fish auctions are over although auctions have been closed to the public since 2005 anyway from the sheer number of and interference by misbehaving tourists (visitors touching tuna, obstructing people at work and causing distraction by flash photography). But 7:15 is still the heat of the action at the fish market and there were just tons of workers bustling around. Many of them were on these scooter-truck things hauling around fish, ice, etc. I could swear they were out to hit tourists, I kept jumping out of the way to escape them.
We walked through the market with all the water and fish gunk all over the groud - ick. I have to say it was one of the coolest things I've seen in Tokyo... actually probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen at all. There were tons of fish and tons of huge tuna - check it out:
Workers were cutting, packing and moving fish all over. Kenn took tons of pics of the fish and all sorts of gross things from the sea. Many of them not for the faint of heart but I'll send them around so you can peruse at your leisure.
We also walked through lanes and lanes of fish and seafood being sold at wholesale.
And on the perimeters of the market were fruits and veggies sold at wholesale as well as small shops selling assorted related goods like sushi knives:
We bought some t-shirts at one shop and then chose a little restaurant for a nice sushi breakfast. Freshest fish we'll ever eat probably! There were huge lines for some of the places (many people come early and wait on line or come right after clubbing) but Kenn and I couldn't figure out why some restaurants had lines and others didn't. All the fish must be fresh, how could they differ? Best we could figure is that they had famous chefs or some specialty dish. We chose one with no line and pointed to one of the many many pictures of tuna sashimi they had up on the wall which to us all looked identical. At any rate, it was absolutely delicious:
After our breakfast, we walked around a bit more and discovered that the local neighborhood also had all these shops selling cheap produce and packaged goods. It kind of reminded me of Taiwan and Hong Kong night markets because there were tons of food stands as well. We bought lots of snacks and stopped for fried crab on a stick which was really yummy! :) As we walked around, one of those scooter-cart thingies passed us and it was carrying a group of Japanese women who were laughing and screaming. It totally made me laugh:
Tsukuji was a great experience that in my opinion no one visiting Tokyo should miss.
We went home for a nap and later walked around Omotesando and Harajuku at all the high end and boutique shops (think Soho) and young & trendy shops (think Village). We stopped to check out the Prada store which was really cool inside. I "accidently" purchased a wallet. For the record, I really needed a new wallet. ;)
A day of walking around was exhausting so we rested up for Sunday's Sumo. More on that in my next post.
1 comment:
I would really enjoy something like this fish market-- beats standard tourist stuff. I'm sorry I never made it to the Fulton Fish Market near the South Street Seaport. Now it's closed. One reason was that one had to get there like 4 or 5 AM to take in the hustle and bustle. Oh, well.
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