All nighter for the Tsukiji Fish Market

Post date: 02-Dec-2009 11:34:15

Colin and I have been joking since the beginning of our trip about Denny's. We keep pestering each other and saying "Couldn't you just go for a skillet right now?" While wandering around at 11:00 PM trying to find a 24 hour hang out before we visited the fish market we saw the yellow and red magical sign of Denny's. While a skillet was a bit too western for the menu, we did find pancakes, ice cream and all you can drink tea, pop, and coffee. In the 5 hours we were there actually 4 since I spent 1 hour with my head down in a deep sleep drooling all over our table, I managed to consume the following for 280 yen: Rosehip tea, iced Japanese green tea, melon pop, blueberry pop, and pink lemonade pop.

At 4:30 AM we left Denny's and walked to the Tsujiki Fish Market. The sky was black and the warehouse market was illuminated by the shady florescent bulbs on the ceiling. It's definitely not a tourist market. It's the real deal. Since it wasn't 5:00 AM yet none of the fish buyers or other tourists had arrived yet. It really felt like we didn't belong there and we were constantly in people's way no matter where we stepped. Stopping to take a photo even in a seemingly empty isle was dangerous. Each time you took a step you had to do a 360 degree turn to check if you were in someone's way. People were constantly pushing along carrying fish. I was shoved out of the way a few times by impatient people. A few people did welcome our presence and we asked if we could take their picture and they said yes. We knew we'd need to be careful walking through the market, but it was absolute chaos. I am not sure how any of the trucks and people walking with wheel barrows manage to get all the fresh fish to the correct stalls for selling. They must start unloading at 2:00 AM.

We tried to watch the famous tuna auction but we were there a few minutes before 5:00 AM and were rudely yelled at and shoved out of the way when we tried to take a picture. We went back between precisely 5:00 AM-6:15 AM to try and see more of the auction. The website does warn that this is the only time the tuna auction is open to the public. We stuck around until 5:15 AM but didn't see the tuna auction start again, so I am not sure what the deal was there. I don't recommend trying to take pictures of the auction though. There isn't really much to see. We were also ready to leave since we had fish gut water soaking our pants up to our knees.

Caught-the angry guy looking at the camera

There were many types of fish and seafood that we didn't recognize in the market including the following:

A few other random pictures from our journey around Tokyo:

How most people look on the subway

Oops this isn't the shoe store

Solar powered cell phones in Akihabara

Free Kleenex with an ad inside-these are handed out on the street

You can view our other 121 pictures here: