Japan - Day 4, Part 1: Tsukiji Market

Over our whole Japan trip we took something like 1,200 pictures.  A lot of those were the sights at Tsukiji Fish Market.  It's a very famous market - in and out of Japan. Wikipedia deems it, "the biggest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world".  I have no personal ties or family experiences there, so this was purely a tourist excursion for us.

We heard to get there in time for the tuna auction you would have to wait in line very early in the morning.  We left the hotel sometime between 4am-5am and watched the sun rise on our taxi-ride across the city to the market.

Even with our early start, the market was already winding down in activity.  We had missed the tuna auction passes that day already.  We tried to walk into the main area to see any leftover activity, but were turned away by a security guard.  Bummer.

So we contented ourselves in waiting in the longest restaurant line (a tip from several sources) for a FRESH sushi breakfast.  On my way into the market I kept wishing to stop and take the sights in but we were in rush.  Now that we missed the auction & were standing forever in line, I left Blake to hold our spot and started walking through the outside market.

Fish decorations were everywhere.

Edamame, sold on the plant, not in a bag.

Desserts made from sweet beans or sweet potatoes.

These fish were waiting behind some of the sushi restaurants, no doubt purchased that morning.

The place had Styrofoam coolers of fish stacked EVERYWHERE.

The vegetables on sale here were also impressive.

You know that spicy green paste on your sushi plates? It comes from wasabi roots.

I wanted to taste everything! Beautiful & large grapes & peaches, small mellons, when's breakfast?

These diesel powered (stinky exhaust) carts zipped all over the place.  There are 4 in this picture.  And that was normal considering the space.  There were more carts than people in many places.

Everything you need to make sushi was all within a few yards. 

Even the egg omelets for sushi can be found freshly made.

Ever see the plastic menu displays in Japanese restaurant windows?  Yup, you can get those here, too.

...and serve your delicious food on.

Fish designs & kanji.

After 20 minutes (or longer?) in line we decided we could settle for 2nd or 3rd best if it meant we'd be able to eat something sooner.  We found another shop that still had a line (didn't choose the first empty seat we saw) but had only a few people in front of us.

While in line we made small talk with the patrons in front of us.  They told us that if we walk through the fish truck parking area we could go in the back side and still see large fish being transported & cut.  Blake was off in a heartbeat toward the market.  I was fearful of trespassing but guiltily went along.  Once we were inside we realized there were a lot of people inside anyway and no one was being sent away.  We just tried to not get in the way of any business.

Inside was another fascinating treasure trove.

Blake got to see some big fish.

I loved how the knives all looked like swords (maybe they were?).  Tradition.

I would make a face like this, too, if I was running a frozen giant fish through a an electric saw wish flesh chunks flying out.  He was focused.

 I can't even tell you what all of these things are, but my dad was drooling at these pictures...

Vendor, buyer, custom cut with a serious blade.

We didn't get to see the giant of giant tuna's, but still were happy we got to see inside the market and get our fill of pictures.

We crossed the busy truck area again (dodging trucks & carts apologetically) and came back to the restaurant.  I think the original people we talked to were at the front of the line and got seated just as we came back.

In front of Ichiba Sushi.  Since we can't read kanji, when we received the english business card once inside we found it a coincidence that my maiden name is Chiba.  The kanji is different (which means it's a completely different word), but still fun for pronuciation.

The restaurant (like all the others) was a skinny sushi bar only.  Our legs hit the back of the counter, and our backs could literally lean on the wall behind us.   And in this tight space, one waiter was running back and forth taking order, and serving miso soup.

 And now, our breakfast!  

These pictures don't even give these pieces justice.  Each was beautiful and, more importantly, they the quality was unreal!  It was like eating something new entirely.  Everything was amazingly fresh and soft.  The flavors were incredible.  Every single piece was AMAZING.  Pieces of art.  No favorites.  We can safely say that we will never, for the rest of our lives, have any sushi that can even be half as good as we enjoyed that day.

My plate was on glass.

Blake's was on a bamboo leaf.

The tuna on the left was seared with a blow torch in front of us.  It was still pink & perfect on the inside.  Luckily we both had one in our variety plates.

Seriously, what can compare?!

Best breakfast ever!

On our way out there were more interesting things to see...

We loved seeing these Japanese fishing net floats when we were in Hawaii.  I even found one on our reef once.

Fancy mushrooms.

More mushrooms.

I think this was fish powder used like bouillon for soup bases. I've only seen it pre-packaged so was excited to see it in such varieties and in bulk quantities.

Seasoned fishes.  If we weren't so full from breakfast I may have bought some of these.

Again, I always have some of these in my cupboard, but I've only seen fish flakes pre-packaged.  I just wish I could read what kinds of fish these were.

More fish decorations - even on the beware-of-step painting. 

As we walked to the train station I watched this worker wheel containers of fish across the street to a parked car.  A man in the car came out, they looked at the fish together, made an exchange, and loaded the car.  The worker pulled his empty cart back to the main center.

It was then I realized that my father's parents, in their years of poverty, were fish sellers.  My dad ate a lot of fish growing up, not because he liked it.  He even disliked it.  Even my grandmother ("Baachan"), in an age when women did not work, walked door to door through the town every day selling fish.  My dad tells me that she would walk door to door in any weather, hot or snow.  After my dad's younger brother was born, my dad with other relatives would watch the baby and feed him sugar water in a bottle until she came back.  Eventually their door-to-door business became more successful.  They started a shop.  Then a catering business.  Eventually they opened what is now the family business:  a "kaikan" (dining & meeting facility) that hosts wedding and funeral parties for large dinners and even has a few hotel rooms.  But the beginnings of their business, and the reality of most of my father's childhood, was being poor fish sellers.  Even though I came to Tsukiji Fish Market for a purely tourist reason, I left feeling a little bit more connected with my family's past.