Follow
the man with tall Rubber boots and a Wicker basket
For he shall lead you
To Tokyo's Tsukiji Fish Market.
What someone could have also mentioned is that one could follow the trail of cigarette butts and the smell of fish to one of the world's largest markets of tuna.
After
waking up at 4:15 am and jumping on the first express train leaving the
station, we arrived at the labyrinth of stalls, warehouses, and carts
full of frozen and fresh headless tuna. Never could I have
imagined the sheer numbers of Japanese men selling, buying,
transporting, preparing, and killing fish.
If a person had only walked around for less then ten minutes, she or he knew that this place was special. If it were to be made into a Disney movie, it would be a sea animals version of hell with an overall clad Japanese fisherman as the Satan's Little helper. It was in watching three eels desperate attempts to flee the butcher's knife that gave sushi a face and a stomach a turn.
It's not just the cows, chicken, and pigs that need to fear the
slaughter house, the fish that are caught around Japan will journey to
the Tsukiji Fish Market also face a violent end. The implements of
torture varied from rust old blood encrusted knives to large high
powered saws that could cut through large frozen tuna. The sound
as well as the smell will live with me for a long time. If only
people knew where that fresh tuna came from, or the canned flakes of
salmon, the little leg of octopus or squid, then maybe...just maybe raw
fish wouldn't be so popular.
