Tsukiji Fish Markets

Tokyo's fish markets now feature in a lot of travel guides but their fame hasn't changed them. The workers still ride around on crazy little trucks made from setting a drum engine on top of an open wheeled platform—you drive standing up, exposed to the elements but these are wellie-clad fishermen not city suits—driving and smoking where they like and crowding each other out with their activity, much of it while handling really really large knives—saws or swords almost. There is no way people would be able to just wander into a place like this in a European or North American country. The insurance would be a nightmare—the floor is covered in water and ice and there are small mad truck/trolley drivers and men with big knives everywhere. But that's what makes it so memorable.

I saw a tuna which was longer than I am tall—I'm not the shortest person either-its head was about the size of a lions (mane included). I then saw it getting cut up into sections—it took three men to cut into it. I also saw fish turned inside out exposing their roe, octopi with their legs tied in a bundle, squids soaking in their own ink, and more kinds of dead or dying marine life than I could name. After the big auctions first thing in the morning, the purchased fish is sold and/or prepared in a hanger, sectioned off into stalls which all have loft bits where I imagine they keep the knives and freezers, but it's all pretty basic—polystyrene crates, ice, fish, wooden chopping blocks, tanks of water, buckets, hoses and did I mention the knives?

The worst thing is feeling in the way—these guys are working, not here to entertain, despite their surprisingly quite accommodating friendliness. The second worst thing is being torn between drooling for sushi and being slightly repelled by the still flapping tails or snapping claws.
Getting in is slightly confusing—there isn't really a visitor's entrance and you have to go in the way the workers do and keep your eyes peeled for trucks and their extended vehicular families. On the main road, there are noodle bars and stands selling fresh, cooked fish of all kinds, but with just a bar and four chairs—they're not really the restaurants that the guide books promise, those are around the other side and in the narrow lanes beside the main undercover market where along with seafood you can buy crockery, dried foods, pickled foods and other unrecognisable things, suction packed in plastic, fruit and vegetables and anything else you might need if you were planning a dinner party or opening a restaurant. If you're in the market to buy something for your tea, get some advice from one of the less hurried (possibly older) looking market men (not one driving on of the mini trucks), and see what they recommend that day, the people were surprisingly friendly considering I wasn't even a proper shopper, I was taking photos and possibly in the way (though I was trying not to be.)
Nowhere else like it—a perfect place to discover the marketplace atmosphere of Japan and the culinary traditions all in one go. Definitely go, you won't regret it. Even though it's an early start to get there before 8 am.