Tsukiji Market (築地市場)

Ahh, this blog post represents probably the most effort I ever put toward seeing anything in Japan. Friends, I had to wake up at 3:30am just to catch Time Travel's #1 thing to do in Tokyo -- see the Tsukiji Fish Market. Well, specifically the tuna auction, which is the only reason you'd wake up at 3:30 to stand in line at 4am to wait until 5:30am and then be done with it all by 6am.

The tuna market is actually just a small piece of the entire wholesale market (the rest of which opens for non-fish-buying folk at 9am), but is the most iconic part of the market... and also the biggest pain in the ass.

The actual auction starts at two times, the first being at 5:25 and the second being around 5:55. BUT. Yes, there's a but. It's like one of those rap guy's girlfriends. BUT... You must be at the Fish Information Center (Kachidoki Gate) no later than 4am to get a spot as they only allow 120 people (60 each group) to go. Yeah...

The map below gives a rough idea of where the information center is, but I recommend getting there the night before to save yourself the possibility of getting lost, losing your spot, and making that sad discovery that you've been awake since 3:30 am for nothing. The red dot is the center, the purple one is part of the fish market.

Once we successfully grabbed our vests and sat around for 1.5 hours, we were ushered in a neat and orderly line to the center of the auction.

The magic, my friends, was not quite seen yours truly... we saw the huge tuna but we weren't allowed to get close to them. The buyers would taste the tuna flesh, jam it with their pointy sticks... there is no way to not make that last sentence weird.

I only saw one actual auction, but you can experience it yourself via this google translation from the very website itself:

At 5:30 a.m. the tuna auction starts. “How much do you bid?” The auctioneer of a wholesale firm asks in a loud voice. Answering this, a lot of middlemen and authorized buyers bid against each other. The tuna received on the day sell out rapidly. 

 This stolen photo gives you an idea about the tuna set up, though there were not nearly that many when I was there.

After that, I tried some sushi at 6am... it was delicious. Apparently there are some awesome places actually inside the fish market but we never made it that far.

The rest of the market (or the "intermediate sellers market") was not open to visitors until 9am... and I made the unfortunate mistake of sleeping in until 10am and missed most of the action. From what I saw left over, there were quite a few interesting things... live octopus, squid, various fish. It was easily more entertaining than the tuna auction in my opinion. Another stolen photo gives you a good idea of that:

It was also a matter of life and death in there... if you weren't paying attention you could get run over by a death machine! I managed to escape with my life intact so that I could pass on this treasure to you.

How to Get There:
From Tokyo Station, take the Marunouchi Line toward Ogikubo and get off at Ginza Station (1 stop in between). At Ginza station, take the Hibiya Line towards Kitasenju and get off at Tsukiji Station. From there it's a 5 minute walk.