Fish Markets at Tsukiji in Tokyo --- Q & A

★Where is it?  
Coming up stairways of a subway station, Tsukiji, you will find yourselves standing in front of a Buddhist temple called Tsukiji Honganji, where you see a stone-made and Indian style of building. That's completely different from traditional Japanese wooden temples usually based on Chinese architecture.  It is  modernly fashioned because it was re-built after the great  earthquake hitting Tokyo area in 1923. The fish markets were also moved here after the earthquake in 1935.  

Crossing an intersection, a few minutes’ walk
leads to a town like a bazaar where many stalls gathering closely side by side sell fresh fish and grocery or serve sea food to eat. This is the retail area of the Markets.






Walking further for a while,
you come to the front gate of the wholesale area of Tsukiji Market, where many vehicles such as trucks and carts are frequently running with a pile of white boxes made of foam polystrene.  

 

 

 

★When does the wholesale area open?
    It opens at 3:30 am, when people related to the market, such as wholesalers, jobbers, and retailers, come to join auctions or make a deal with each other.  Then retailers  carry things they got to their trucks, while jobbers start cleaning up their stalls. It's around 8:30 am that they finish most of their jobs. The whole market is closed by noon.
    You are generally allowed to enter the area after 9 am as long as you do not disturb their activity, walking on the sides of roads or crossing paths after letting small carriers pass first.    Being deep into the area,

you see a big arc-shaped building.
That is the heart of the area, the wholesale market of sea foods.

★Why is it arc-shaped?     The market used to have a railway to transport sea foods by train, and there were many platforms that were made along curved rails. That’s the reason.

The railway transportation had continued for 40 years, but trucks took place of the old system 30 years ago. Seventy years has passed since its establishment, and now modern buildings that replace the old market are under construction in a seaside area. They will complete in 2016.  So I’m sure that you fortunately come and see how the wholesale has been operated in a traditional way, which disappears in two years.

★What is the inside like?    Aisles and alleys are arranged regularly like arcs and radii in geometry, with address displays hanging from the ceiling.  


   Along these small paths, numerous stalls stand side by side with their names on top. Each stall is about 5 to 10 meters wide, which means that no more than 800 wholesalers are in the arc. The number might be surprising and amazing, but is natural because they supply sea foods for 13 million people in Tokyo.


   They have a wide variety of sea foods such as fish, shellfish, crabs, lobsters, octopuses, roe, and sea vegetables.  What is the most special among them is the head of tuna, which is called Kabuto, or Armor helmet, from its shape.  The broiled head of tuna, called Kabuto Broiled, is well-knwon as a valuable, delicious and nutritious dish in Japan.  Here would be the only place in the metropolis where you can take a close look at Kabuto  here and there.

★How is the smell of fish?
   You would be anxious about fries and unpleasant smell of fish, but you don't have to worry about them because the whole site is kept in perfectly sanitary condition.  I' ve never felt unpleasant there.  Please note that tourists are also required to keep hygienic rules such as no drinking, no eating and no smoking in the wholesale area.  
   Japan is surrounded with waters and has long history of fishery.  So I’d say that Tokyo has the world’s largest  variety of sea foods.

   You’ll have a good experience that you cannot have in the other countries.