Tokyo Tsukiji Fish Market

I was just in Tokyo for a brief business trip but did manage to check out the Tsukiji Fish Market. Its the largest wholesale fish market in the world moving more than $6B in fish every year and employing over 60,000 people! It really felt like they all showed up to work the morning I was there as the place was a hive of activity with forklifts and motorized buggies shuttling product to and fro. I get the feeling that the locals see it as sport to run over tourist toes so you've really got to watch yourself.



The action centers around the live tuna auction and in order to get there I had to leave my hotel at 4:30am. The tuna hall had 200 or so huge frozen specimens spread out on the floor. Wholesalers walk the floor, poking and prodding the fish to determine freshness like an old lady squeezing avocados in a grocery store. Probing to determine muscle tone and skeletal girth, I guess. I was still sleepy but was quickly awakened as the auctioneer stepped to his pedestal, rang his bell and began taking orders. The process is a low tech open outcry auction, surprising given the high prices these babies trade for (the record price for a single bluefin tuna is $180,000). With those prices you'd expect there to be guys in suits and flat screen trading monitors instead of smelly guys in rubber boots carrying clipboards.

When the auction is over the tuna are dragged off to the individual market stalls where they are sliced into slabs and distributed throughout the western hemisphere where it ultimately lands on your sashimi platter.