30 October 2018
A tale of two fish markets
Tsukiji and Toyosu fish markets comparison
Today I visited the old and the new fish markets and almost got murdered by a sushi chef.
A few days ago the famous Tsukiji fish market moved a few miles away to a fake island called Toyosu. The move has been delayed many times but finally happened, they should have delayed it further.
At its peak over 40,000 people a day visited Tsukiji, at its peak no more than 400 people a day should bother with the new market at Toyosu.
I never visited the old market when it was officially still open, but now even though its shut its a bustling fun place with things to see, eat, buy, photograph if you wish to get stabbed.
The new market has a couple of sad stores, and a hallway of double walled glass to press your face against and not see anything interesting through. It is really hugely hugely disappointing.
It is so disappointing that I read this morning that there are now rumors the market will move back to Tsukiji in 2025 and the new market will just be truck parking. Anyway, onto how I almost got stabbed.
Warning, swearing ahead!
Literally thousands of people go to the fish market and take photos of the strange sea creatures and stores, and most people sit down and have a meal of fresh sashimi. So I was taking a few snaps, and walked past a little sushi stand that was very warmly lit, and went to take a photo.
The sushi chef guy SCREAMED at the top of his lungs, despite having a bar full of customers, 'NO PHOTO NO PHOTO! If you take photo I KILL YOU!'
I was taken aback and said, 'you will kill me?'
His response, 'YOU AMERICAN PIG, GET LOST, OR I STAB YOU WITH MY KNIFE!!!!'
He really did have a big knife he was waving now but he was still behind his bar, his customers all looked shocked, some of them were taking photos of their sushi with their phones.
I decided to point out the un obvious, 'I am not American, I am Australian'.
His response, was very colorful, I congratulate him on his English, 'EVEN WORSE, AUSTRALIAN IS THE WORSE MOTHERFUCKER ON PLANET....YOU WANT STAB! I STAB YOU!'
The monorail ends here abruptly. This is a rather large man made island, theres another 2 smaller ones between here and the mainland.
Another very bright very sunny day. The sun seems very burning. I should have applied sunscreen. Everything on this island is large and spacious.
A lot of whats here is brand new. To give you an example, that bridge was not even on google maps.
OK, this is the main part of the fish market, the intermediary wholesale market, except its 2 levels below me and you cant even see it. Instead you get rushed up an escalator into this gift shop area. Theres maybe 20 shops, some selling t-shirts.
That building is the actual market, which you cannot visit.
There is a much smaller wholesale market, where there are a few restaurants, maybe 10. But you still cant go into the actual market.
Instead you can go to a museum explaining why the new market is better, the most interesting thing is this mascot, which is apparently based on an electric car crossed with a cat. The old market had blue electric cars moving fish around.
You have to wear this visitor pass to identify you as someone not allowed to go into the market. This is Japanese thinking at its finest. The regular buyers and sellers carry no ID at all, and are allowed to go down to the selling floor, visitors wear this pass to keep them out. I see no reason why you could not just take this pass off and put it in your pocket and pretend to be a buyer.
What does the pass get you into? A view out of this double glazed smudged with snot window. And thats all. Theres not many windows. Luckily there is no one else visiting so I got a window to myself.
This is the entire publicly accessible area of the fish market viewing gallery.
Much more interesting than the market is the roof garden. I bounded up many flights of stairs when I saw the sign.
And I had the whole garden to myself! I stripped off and ran a lap.
The grass still looks dead from the winter, but its a huge area with great views and almost no other people. Even on a day like today with excellent weather.
They have even built me a little bridge to get a better view.
Thats the rainbow bridge that goes to nearby island Odaiba, I have been on that before a few times. Not today.
There are plenty of cranes on that island. I think whats being built there is something to do with the upcoming olympics.
I retreated to the mainland and started to look for the old market, which is not really closed down at all. Along the way I passed this huge Buddhist school / temple / whatever they call it. LENS FLARE! OMG.
I have noticed on this trip that nearly every street corner has one of these traffic counter guys punching numbers into his little metal counter things. Seriously, hundreds of guys doing this.
Anyway, heres the old fish market at Tsukiji. First up we have this cool cat they shot and stuffed to guard the fake crab meat wrapped in plastic.
The old market is still very busy and full of tourists. Probably Australian, probably upsetting a nearby stabby sushi chef.
I found an elevated position to take a photo of the chaos below. The main chaos is to the right of here.
Unlike the actual fish market, the closed down fish market still has hundreds of shops to buy fish from.
This store needs to read up on how much everyone seems to hate Johnny Depp now. Its like proudly stating that your store was visited by Adolf Hitler.
This unremarkable photo shows how a Japanese construction site likes to soften the inconvenience of closing part of the footpath. With kitten and puppy posters.
And now I will be on google street view. I am famous! If you see a guy making lewd gestures on google street view in Tokyo with his face blurred out, its me!