Tsukiji is huge. If you tried to walk down every aisle in the place it could take a week. So it’s no wonder that we never found the tuna auction on our first trip. The auction is tucked back and out of the way. To find it you will need a map. We made a beeline for it, with map in hand, as we came off the first train of the morning, and I’m glad we did. The above sign will let you know that you’ve found it. I was surprised that we weren’t first in line. I don’t know how the others got there before us, but the line quickly grew very long behind us.

Only a few people are let in at a time (and there have been occasions when the auctions have been banned to the public for viewing). If you arrive after 6 a.m. your odds of getting in are very slim indeed.

The freshly frozen tuna, with tails cut off, are lined up in row after row. Potential bidders are allowed the chance to poke around in the tuna’s cut off portion. They were diving in with all manner of poking devices to check for quality before bidding I suppose. Then, at just after 6 a.m., the bells started ringing and the auctions began in a flurry. I shot a 1 minute video of this scene below. The quality isn’t great as I was being jostled about by the other tourists. It wasn’t all that different from a rock concert.

Posted on August 25th, 2009 under Japan • Tags: food, Tokyo, tsukiji, video. • RSS 2.0 feed • Both comments and pings are currently closed