Market Friday goes to Tsukiji Fish Market

Tsukiji Fish Market

One of the largest fish markets in the world is located in Tokyo, and I had the opportunity to visit years ago when I lived in Japan. I was on my final days in Japan, just chilling with a buddy crashing his place. Three days had turned into one week, had turned into two, and in the end finally three. Our explorations had taken us on adventures from one end of the Tokyo to the other. Clubs, museums, food, cultural sites. Today was one of the food days.

I love sushi, I love sashimi, I just really love raw fish. So when I found out about Tsukiji, and how close it was to where I was staying, well, a day-plan hatched. By this point I'd been on the road living from a backpack for a month hitchhiking around the island of Hokkaido so early mornings didn't excite me. Why does that matter? Well, because the super famous part of Tsukiji, the tuna auction, is between 5am and 630am. I ended up there at around 8a.m.

The market wasn't crazy at that time, most shops were cleaning up or selling off their scraps.

Some shops were meant just for 'late' morning visitors. Others for tourists. Those were working normally. That didn't stop the immensity of the place from having a huge impact. People buzzed around like bees on these little carts. Damn did they dart around and god forbid you were in their way. They wouldn't have stopped, not at all.

Each one of them madly heading to their destination, carrying fish of some sort or another. It was like a dance, how the locals maneuvered them, pirouetting around each other, a hair-breadth from an accident at all moments. And, I'm not exaggerating about that.

I was also stunned by the garbage that piled up. A by-product of an ever-consuming society. How can we keep this up? What are going to be the consequences?

You could see the aftermath of another busy morning.

People resting when and where they could. I can't even imagine the energy they had to put out at those early hours. Well, maybe a little. I remember well doing a lot of hay bailing when I worked the summers at a bible camp. But that was just part-time, not day-in-day-out, week after week. Ants, weaving back and forth, each with their own task. Each with their own story, their own lives, interwoven like threads in a tapestry.

That was my strongest impression of the place. This crazy electric energy of non-stop hyper active motion infected the place. There were pockets of quiet, but so few. Oasis from the crushing push of movement.

Of course it smelled like fish

like bleach, like salt water, like freshwater, everything crashing together in your nose. And in the echoey chambers of this huge warehouse every noise had this sharp snap that was quickly muffled. Conversations were lost in the vast space, mixed with the squealing of tires.

I bought some sashimi, tuna if I remember correctly, and went to eat it at a nearby park. No soy sauce, no wasabi, I felt kind of like an idiot eating it from the plastic container while sitting on a bench. But, whatever. If looking like an idiot was the sacrifice I had to make to enjoy that super fresh, and super tasty fish, I was going to make it. I had done a lot stupider and more embarrassing things to get rides just the previous month in Hokkaido, but that's a whole different series.

Thanks for stopping by and reading! I'd love to hear what you think about the market and my experience :)
Michael

This post was inspired by #MarketFriday initiated by @dswigle and is my first of hopefully many :)

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