Today was the day we ventured down to Tsukiji Fish Market. Although it would have been interesting to see the tuna auction, I really wasn’t up to being up at 3am to get a ticket. However, I did want to see the inner market before 11am, so we headed out around 8am (Kaelyn was not keen on waking up so early). The streets were pretty empty and the train ride just a few stops away.
As soon as we got off the subway we knew we were close, the smell of fish was faint but you could certainly smell it. We arrived around 9:30am and the inner market was blocked until 10am. We wondered through a few of the shops until they let us in.
Once 10am came, we were allowed in and it was amazing to see all the fish. Words can’t really describe it. There was many live fish and those being cleaned and processed and others still frozen or salted. Kaelyn was not too happy about it, she is now ready to be a vegetarian.
When we were done, we walked outside and headed to the nearby shops. Many sushi places with HUGE lines, the restaurant itself could only hold 10-15 people but there would be 30 people lined up outside. We found some interesting snakes like candied type crabs (see below video).
The number of food vendors seemed endless. We passed a few people eating a platter of seafood on a huge shell. I couldn’t resist. For ¥1000 ($12) we sampled a wonderful mixture of seafood. They also sold other items, look at the size of that shrimp!!! We will have to come back to eat it again.
A little farther on, we found a vendor selling octopus on a stick for ¥500 (6). They were ok but not something we need to buy again. The girls tried each one, so they got a treat of ice cream.
After that, we walked to the nearby Tsukiji Hongan-ji temple. It was pretty busy and inside was very hard to breath as there was a lot of incense being burnt.
After that we walked along a path suggested by the Lonely Planet Tokyo book in our apartment. We came across another shrine that explained how to worship.
By the end of the walk, we were pretty tired so I treated the girls to our first McDonald’s trip.
We then hoped onto the subway and took it back home (thankfully the station was on the direct line back home). When we got back, Tammy and I gave the crabs a try – Kaelyn didn’t want to try it out 🙁