First I cut off zeir heads, zen I pull out zeir bones...

 So I promised an explanation of Golden Week earlier: it's a series of tubes--I mean holidays--including Greenery Day, Constitution Day, Showa Day, Children's Day, and perhaps some others I can't recall. This year we had Thursday and Monday through Wednesday off. For some reason, the university didn't give the students Friday off, even though many probably wouldn't show up just for that one day. It's pretty much the only vacation during the spring semester in Japan, and very busy, so it's important to make any necessary reservations for that week as soon as possible.

And on with our Tokyo adventure.

After our delicious breakfast at Starbucks, we went to visit a much less aromatic sight. The Tsukiji Fish Market is the largest wholesale fish market in Japan and in the world.
As such, it's incredibly busy, smelly, wet, and open to tourists for only certain hours of the day.


Don't get me wrong--it's a very interesting place to wander through, or rather, squeeze your way through the aisles, dodge all the bikes speeding through the larger passages, and try not to let forklifts run over you.
If you're ok with people chopping up sea creatures, and a few small tanks of bloody water, then probably the only thing that will terrify you is the heavy traffic in and outside of the warehouses.




Remember the song the chef sings in The Little Mermaid? Start there, and add in some Sweeney Todd gore.



Not that they're cruel to the fish and squids, etc.  As far as slaughter goes, decapitation is probably about as humane as it gets. It felt a little numbing watching it, after taking Marine Biology and such...although we did go on a fishing boat as a field trip for that class. Most of the students actually caught some fish too. I didn't feel much like partaking, even though I don't have a particular fondness for fish.

This thing looked prehistoric

In any case, maneuvering around Tsukiji kind of feels like playing Frogger. And if you ever go, be prepared for the workers and customers to give you dirty looks for being tourists and crowding their sky.

Or sea.

~~~

Some sights on the way to Ginza

 

les poissons, les poissons, hee hee hee haw haw haw...