Tokyo and the fish market

Once again I return to Tokyo but this time taking only 8 hours to get here on the Shinkensen from Sapporo - at 300kph the countryside zooms past the window with streamers of snow and ice blowing past on both sides kicked up by the train as it passes. The snowy landscape persists up until 1 hour outside Tokyo but one thing does strike me about all the cities that we pass - Japan is distinctly low rise in its urban development - most urban areas are huge metropolitans but they extend outwards to cover valley floors and plains but there are few sky scrapers…

Tokyo is a neon lit wonder with a fabulous energy to its people. It is a churning maelstrom of bodies going about their daily lives with bewildered tourists occasionally looking all around and back at their maps, clearly lost… I was not one of these, armed with my JR line map and rail pass I was able to locate K’s backpackers hostel which once again provides EXCELLENT accommodation for just 2800Y per night in a four bed dorm close to one of the JR lines. The rail pass effectively gives me free transport within Tokyo so long as I use JR lines - and it just so happens that all the places worth seeing on this visit are on the ‘JR Yamamote line’, which is the inner city circular line.

I spend one full day looking around the major shopping areas of the city including towering complexes with entertainment and more comic and electronic stores than you can shake a stick at!! But on the second day it was time to get serious and wake up early - the fish market was calling and I wanted to see the days catch, so taking the JR line I make my way to the Tokyo Fish Market and find it buzzing with activity, people are thronging the isles while carts (like forklifts) wiz around them occasionally tooting horns to warn of impending doom if you stray in their path… Crates and boxes are everywhere and fish in all shapes and sizes are for sale, some I could not even recognise!! From tiny white bait to fish larger than me… Walking through the market you can see many of the animals still alive in tanks or boxes awaiting the inevitable haul out of the tanks… Tuna were evident but by the time I was there most had been sold on and only a few remained being chopped and calved up into small chunks/strips to be sold to wholesalers or shoppers. It was interesting to watch how each of the fish were humanely dispatched, cleaned and sold within 2 minutes of leaving the tanks… While nothing seems to go to waste, even the fish heads are sold on… Amazing to watch the efficiency of the workers here who seem to have developed ‘muscle knowledge’ with their razor sharp knives - Definitely worth a visit but be aware that this is a working market - try not to get in the way and at least buy some fresh sushi.