Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads.

One of the most interesting places to see in Tokyo is the Tsukiji fish market and most notably the tuna auctions that happen there. Unfortunately the auctions start at 5:30 in the morning! Not wanting to miss this, we met our guide - Amaya san - in the hotel lobby at 4am. We grabbed a taxi outside the hotel and headed to the market.

The thing about Tsukiji is that it isn't meant for tourists. This is a real place of business and millions of dollars worth of fish and seafood are bought, sold and packaged there everyday. The reality is that while you stand in a path taking pictures there are people trying to get by and make money. Imagine if people came to your place of work and stood right where you needed to be with flashing cameras, blocking your path while you are trying to make deadlines. That is what Tsukiji is like for the people who work there.

The market is also a dangerous place. There are no areas sectioned off just for tourists (actually one, will get there in a bit), and no pedestrian paths. 20,000+ trucks move in and out of the market every day and there are thousands of little carts that zoom by at dangerous speeds moving fish and other items throughout. You really have to pay attention or you can get hit, maimed or killed in many different ways. That fact helps keep you awake that early in the morning.

Recently, the market has changed its policy on tourists during the hours of the auctions. This is the biggest draw to Tsukiji and it was its most problematic. Tourists would touch the fish, blind the auctioneers with flashes and generally cause issues with the auctions. So now you must be confined to a small area, roughly 4 feet wide by 50 feet long that runs down the center of where the frozen tuna are auctioned off. Flashes are no longer allowed either. It gets rather crowded but it was still quite a site.

There are hundreds of frozen tuna laid out on the floor of the market. Each one is numbered and marked with where it was caught and its weight in kilograms. Representatives of the wholesalers at the market examine the fish by cutting its tail and looking at the color, rubbing the fish meat between their fingers, and sometimes tasting the fish. This gives them an idea of quality of the fish, and it goes on for about an hour or so before the auction begins.

The auctioneer will ring a bell for about 30 seconds and then begin a barrage of fast talk in which he calls out the number of the fish and prices. The wholesalers stand around and make fairly discreet hand gestures using their thumbs and fingers. The whole thing only took a few minutes and was very interesting to watch. It was easy to see how some camera flashes might cause the auctioneer to miss signals from the bidders. The crazy thing is how much some of the fish go for. A big tuna of good quality may go for up to 10,000 yen per kilogram. The biggest fish we saw weighed in at over 250 kilograms, making the fish work over $25,000!

We walked around the market for a while after and Amaya san would point out different fish and tell us what they were called in english as well as japanese. After nearly being killed by hundreds of moving carts we decided to go eat at one of the famous sushi restaurants inside the market walls.

The place is called Sushi Dai and it already had a line outside at 6:30am. We waited for a bit over an hour before we could enter. The place is extremely small with a max capacity of about 15 japanese or 10 americans. It consists of a bar with stools, a shelf to put your bags on, a small kitchen in back, 1 waitress and 3 sushi making men behind the bar, oh and lots of fish. The fish is as fresh as can be and the men make the sushi with their bare hands. They place the pieces on the bar one at a time as they make it and you eat it without plates. The chef will tell you what it is as he puts it down and whether you should dip in soy or eat without any sauce. I have to admit it was amazing, probably the best sushi in the world. We had tuna, sea urchin, mackerel, sea bass, sea eel and some other pieces as well. The sea bass and eel were standouts. I can't believe raw fish can taste so good! - There was one piece that wasn't so good. We got a roll that looked like tuna and cucumber but frankly i thought the fish was bad. It was an awkward moment as you can't really not eat the fish they give you, so i choked it down. Later on while discussing with Marc we found out that it was salmon fetus, and that is just what it tastes like. Even though i was a little disturbed, i was still happy not to have eaten bad fish.

We left the market at about 8:45 and walked to the nearest train station. Amaya san was ready to show us some other great spots in Tokyo. We arrived just outside of the imperial palace. This place is gigantic. The outer moat runs for blocks and the gardens just inside the moat seem to go on forever. It is an extremely lavish space especially in a city that is so crammed together. The unfortunate thing is that no one is allowed inside the palace gates, so you can't even marvel at the space. The farthest you can go is to the inner moat and the 2 bridges that are there. You can see a small guard house overlooking the bridges but that is it. We took some pictures and wondered back into the Maranouchi area of the city.

This is a business / shopping district very close to the main Tokyo subway station. Amaya san practiced his english by saying the names of the stores as we went by. We waked into the Maranouchi building and accessed the Tokyo station through the basement. Next stop Ginza.

Ginza is like Manhattan's 5th avenue, expensive trendy stores and boutiques that stretch for a mile or so. There were people lined up outside a number of the stores waiting for them to open. Most notably was the H&M store, which had a line that went on for blocks and needed security guards to help manage it. This is the only H&M in japan right now, but it was hard to believe that it had been open for weeks already and still had enough buzz to draw a line early on a thursday morning. We visited a bonsai shop which had some amazing trees and the sony building which had an exhibition on Kabuki.

We headed back to Shinjuku for lunch and Amaya san brought us to his favorite tempura shop. The place was made out of an old house and we sat upstairs right in front of the chef. We each got rice, miso soup and tempura dipping sauce with ground radish. The chef would make the tempura while we ate and place pieces down as they were done. Shrimp, whitefish, pepper, sweet potato, and a cake of different seafood. The flavors were amazing and even though the food is fried, it still seems so light.

We headed back to the hotel and thanked Amaya san for his time. He was a gracious host and was too nice for words. I hope he enjoyed our day even a fraction of how much we did - omoshirokatta desu yo. We then headed to the room for a well deserved nap!