Day 1 - 5am Tsukiji Market

I have never been so jetlagged - I didn't even realize until six days later that my circadian rhythms, extreme normally, had been bent. Eben and I arrived in Tokyo at 6pm after a painless 16 hour flight and travelled another 60+ minutes to the New Otani Hotel in the central Tokyo embassy district.

4 hours later, a 5am taxi to the Tsukiji Central Mercantile Market. Too wacked to resist, we took the chaos in stride and tried not to get run over by Y500,000 worth of mackeral on an extracycle rickshaw going somewhere fast.

The tuna action. This market happens every day - eat it now, in 10 years there will only be jellyfish.

These were alive. See Eben's site for the video.

There were at least 10 warehouses with 50 rows each and as many sellers per row. Stalls are by license only and once per year the real estate gets resorted so that each vendor gets a fair shot at the preferential locations. I cannot imagine what that day looks like. .

This is what scallops on the shell look like at 6:30am. Yummy.

My man, sushi 7am - sugoi!