View from the 40th floor of the hotel.
Frozen fish being sawed into pieces.
Buyers inspecting the tuna before an auction.
Yesterday morning I got up at 4:30 a.m. to go to Tsukiji fish market, here in Tokyo. This is where commericial fishermen bring their catch, very early each morning, to sell to buyers who supply the grocery stores and restaurants of Tokyo with fresh seafood. It is the largest fish market in the world, and has been nicknamed the Wall Street of the fish trade. It goes on for blocks and blocks.
I saw all kinds of seafood being sold, including scallops, oysters, squid, and octopus, as well as all kinds of fish. The highest prices paid at the market are for blue fin tuna, which is used in the most popular kind of sushi. The tuna are huge. Most of them are flash-frozen on the ships where they are caught, to keep them fresh. Buyers inspect the tuna, using metal bars with hooks at the end (they look like small crowbars) to cut off a small piece which they can look at closely. They are looking for a high fat content. The higher the fat content of the tuna, the higher the quality is considered to be.
After the buyers have had a chance to look over the different fish, which have each been numbered, an auctioneer rings a bell to announce the beginning of the selling, and then he begins auctioning off the fish. This is very lively, and fun to watch, as you will be able to tell from the video.
When I got back from the fish market, I had breakfast at a restaurant on the 40th floor of the hotel, with windows looking out on the city below. I have uploaded a picture of the view. Look closely at the white shape in far distance sky, which looks something like a cloud floating in the horizon. It's not a cloud; it is the snow-capped peak of Mt. Fuji!
I spent the rest of the day attending lectures on the Japanese education system, the economy of Japan, and the Japanese government. The speakers were university professors from different Japanese universities (including the vice-president of one university), and Yuji Tsushima, a Diet Member who has been elected to the Japanese House of Representatives for the past 33 years. The lectures were very interesting and informative. They made me want to learn even more about Japan.
