Showing posts with label bit of bent coat hanger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bit of bent coat hanger. Show all posts

Monday, 20 December 2010

Tsukiji Fish Market, Tokyo - the eighth wonder of the world



Welcome to Tsukiji, the world's greatest fish market. Although market is probably the wrong word - this place is nothing short of a wonder (next to Tsukiji, Machu Picchu is a mound of bricks on a hill, etc). 


The 57 acre site is a city of seafood, where over 2,000 tonnes of the stuff is displayed and shifted each day - that's over 700,000 tonnes a year across more than 1,500 stalls. Over 60,000 people call Tsukiji their place of work, and very few of them can ever claim to have a dull day. 


That's because Tsukiji is an explosion of vivid colour, clattering sound and heady ocean scents that grabs all of your senses at once, shakes them up in a giant conch shell, tips them into a polystyrene box full of ice and sells them to a sushi chef. 


Pull on some shoes that you no longer love, and come wade through the fish guts, as we tour the myriad bonkers sights of Tsukiji.




Baby squid taking a nice bath with some ice cubes and some black ink.




Eels do it in blood-sullied water.



 Huge octopi brazenly showing off their tentacles.


More cephalopods than you can shake a squid at.




When the going gets weird, the 'geoduck' turns pro.




The Tsukiji barbershop singing troupe turns up for morning practice. 




'Salmon in a box' doesn't quite do this pic justice, does it?


"I'm sure I left a white polystyrene box around here somewhere."




Pfffft...your guess is as good as mine.




"Hey, I can see your brain from here."



For the life of them, Toshiro and Dave couldn't work out where the fishy smell was coming from.



There's nothing better than a bucket of eels, is there?



"One day I'm gonna get me an R2D2 unit like Haruki's."



Three men, an ancient looking cart, and a ready-made photo opportunity.



"Mom, which knife should I use to disembowel the nosey Englishman?"



Don't you just hate it when a prawn burrows into your neck?



"Aren't you glad you're not us?"



If you don't want to know what they did with this blood-soaked chopping board, razor-sharp knife and bit of bent coat hanger, don't look below.



It's a cruel world ain't it?