April 28, 2008 - Around The World, Day 3 - Tokyo

We wake up very early the first real morning and head to the Tsukiji Fish Market.

When we get there, we see what appears to be chaos.
Narrow alleys and walkways through booths of a huge variety of fish and other seafood related things.

But as we spend more time winding through the market, we see that it really is organized.
Not exactly a Swiss timepiece, but very efficient nonetheless.

We walk straight through to the back, where the alleys give way to packaged fish and fast-moving carts of packaged fish...

...then dodge some the motorized that are flying around.

...All this to get to the big auction.
Check out the monster tuna!

People pull and prod and check out the fish.

And man, do they get into the guts of 'em!

Many are fresh, but they also have frozen ones, I guess from the boats that were out at sea longer.

After the auction, the maze got harder to navigate, as carts delivered the big tuna to their purchasers.

Jill poses with someone's auction bounty.

...then they start carving.
Check out this samurai carving a fish with a 6' sword.

This dude, too!

Using a scallop shell to take out the bad parts.

This head is huge. Those cobblestones are larger than they look.

Oh so fresh.

Samples of this vendor's tuna quality.

(They're not juSt carving; they're selling from these booths.)

We go further back to the shellfish building.

The variety here is amazing, too!

So this auction starts.
People vie for the boxes of shrimp, lobsters, etc.

It's still early.

Back out to the main market.

Fatty fish skin. Awesome.

Something unrecognizable on the left and fish brains on the right...

Huge, huge sea phallus (gargantuan clams).

Oysters and massive mussels.

Big ole ugly fish.

Tuna and roe.

Tobiko and fish.

Eels are so bloody,

so bloody,

that wherever they are being stored, the floor below has crimson pools.

Live octupi in bags (which were squirting up in frustration).

Dead octopus.