Travel to Japan: Tokyo: Tsukiji

Originally next to Nihombashi Bridge, the Tokyo Fish market was moved after the quake of 1923 four kilometers south, to Tsukiji, on filled land near where the Sumida River enters Tokyo Bay. The Tsjkiji Central Wholesale Market is now perhaps the biggest fish market in the world, although most of the merchandise arrives by air at Narita and is trucked in.  Beautiful in a way, the market can also seem like a charnal house--the sea mined and butchered.

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Over 2,000 tons of seafood comes through the market every day.  Most is boxed, but some, like this tuna, is too big for that.

Standard boxes.

Live shellfish, oxygenated.

Scallops and clams.

Oysters and shrimp.

Cockles.

Octopi.

Geoducks or, more phonetically, gooeyducks.

Assorted crab.

Carp and flounder.

Sole.

Cutlass fish.

Whole tuna, freshly auctioned.

The main act: tuna ready for auctioning.

Lined up. Bluefin tuna, mostly from Mexico but some from Tunisia, will sell here for about $20 a kilogram. Less valuable bigeye tuna sell for half as much and come from Australia, Indonesia, Viet Nam, and the Maldives. 

Still frozen: these fish have come a long way.

Buyers and sellers.

The bidding starts.

Keeping track. 

Theatrics.

Not easy to bamboozle.

The fish is sold and labelled.

Decapitation.

Tidying up.