Tsukiji Fish Market

Tsukiji Fish Market sometimes called as Central Wholesale Market is very interesting place in Tokyo. This place consist of two sections, the ‘inner market’ is the licensed wholesale market, where the seafood auctions take place. The ‘outer market’ consists of stalls selling of many kinds of fresh fish, seafood, processed marine product, etc.

The most interesting part in the Market is Tuna Auction in the ‘inner market’. The auctions start around 5:00am, you need to wake up earlier to witness this specially events (renowned as the highlight of visiting the Tsukiji Fish Market). You can see a huge amount of Tuna fishes (with tail cut down) line up on a terraced platform within the Wholesaling Area. Auctioneer uses a red food coloring to indicate group of Tuna fishes they belong by some kanji characters or symbol. Buyers carry a ‘hook’ type of tool to slide down small piece of the Tuna meat with the tool. They can either smell it or rub the meat by using their thumb and index finger to examine the quality of fish.

Once the inspection session is passed, auctioneer rings the hand bell and rapidly calls out the number and opening bid for each group of tuna. Buyers use a hand gestures to inform the auctioneer how much they want to bid for a particular group of tuna called out by auctioneer. This is the interesting part as the way auctioneer rapidly call out the bidding sound very much like chanting with some fascinating rhythm, you can also see those buyers busily show their hand gesture to response each calling by the auctioneer. The amazing thing is final price for the bid can be established almost immediately within the calling and hand gesture between auctioneer and buyer.

After the bidding, each Tuna will be loaded into the carry cart. The narrow street in the market will be packed with carts carrying with frozen Tuna fish to be loaded into trucks and shipped to the next destinations. Some carts will be moved to the stall located inside of the market.

You can also have chance to witness how Tuna fish is processed in the ‘outer market’. When the frozen Tuna fish delivered to fish stall, it will be cut by using a machinery saw into 4 quadrants. Fishmonger will remove the bone by using a long knife and cut the fish into smaller rectangle pieces.

Each piece of tuna fish will be then displayed in the stall with different price base on its size and quality.

Other than Tuna fish, there are different varieties of interesting fish or marine product sell in the ‘outer market’.

When you have chance to visit Tokyo, you can arrange sometimes to visit Tsukiji Fish Market. This is totally different from the rest of seafood or wet market in other part of Asia.