Tsukiji

"Bzzzz" went the alarm clock at 4:30 a.m., beckoning us to Tokyo's famous Tsukiji Fish Market. We were in a taxi and at the market by 5a.m. in time for the tuna auction, the market's main event. Buyers walk the merchandise floor of frozen tuna, some as large as a Toyota Prius, and poke and prod the big fish looking for an edge over the other buyers. Then an auctioneer steps up on a wooden box, everyone starts screaming at each other in Japanese, a bell rings and someone walks away with the winning fish. The open outcry process is how its always been done at Tsukiji, even as the price of a single tuna can reach into the hundreds of thousands of USD.



Its a great experience but you've really got to watch for your own safety as there are motorcarts, trucks and minibusses going every which way, and a slippery floor of water and fish slime on which to maneuver. With a very pregnant Lizzie and and a 2-year old in my arms, I was a worry wart. But we made it through and had time to check out many of the individual merchant stalls, some of which have been passed down through generations of family back to when Tokyo was known as Edo and got its first fish market in the 1500's.







The ritual is to sit for a sushi breakfast which we did. Sashimi at 7am straight from the source of much of the Western sushi world's raw fish never tasted so good. Ingrid wasn't having it though, she's not real big on Japanese cuisine. So we feed her the one constant that is universally available throughout all our international travel destinations: Pringles.