Fish Market of Death

On Tuesday, Lydia, Kyle and I woke up at an ungodly hour and hopped on a train to Ginza. Our mission: the Tsukiji fish market.

Tsukiji market is a big wholesale seafood market (the largest in the world, at least according to Wikpedia) meant for people who need to buy large amounts of fish, like restaurant owners and people with pet whales. A sign outside the property says that visitors are allowed in as long as they stay the hell out of the way and try not to get killed, which is actually much harder than it sounds.

The market is intense. And also dangerous. Very dangerous. Inside the covered building, there are rows and rows of vendors showcasing an array of seafood, a lot of which was unrecognizable to me. Every which way there are guys cleaning, gutting, and hacking away at giant fish using what look like samurai swords. It would have been a great photo op except that if you try to stand still for even a second, you run the risk of being run over by one of the mini-forklifts that were traveling way too fast along paths that were way too narrow. Every so often, Lydia would grab my arm and pull me back as one of these vehicles zoomed right past me.




A guy, who unlike us, actually belonged in the market

One of the guys who tried to run us over with his ta-ray
The four of us (now joined by Will) wandered the market for about half an hour before deciding that it was no longer wise to tempt fate like this. We managed to escape the market unscathed, with all our limbs more or less intact. Our next mission: a sushi breakfast.

After a bit of searching, we found a restaurant around the market that actually had some affordable sushi. We ordered and watched the sushi chef prepare our dishes for us. When they arrived at our table...I just stared at it. Unfortunately, the nausea I had been feeling all morning (presumably from waking up at an ungodly hour) had finally caught up with me and the only thing I wanted to do at that moment was throw up. I felt all sorts of guilty for not eating it, especially when they chef asked Kyle if his food disgusted me or something. I thought I had offended him. Kyle said that no, he probably just felt as though he had failed me and was disappointed in himself. This did not make me feel better.

The sushi breakfast that I didn't eat
As it turns out, it was actually a good idea that I didn't try to force feed myself the sushi since ten minutes later, on a busy street corner in Ginza, I vomited into a plastic bag. As bad as I felt about not eating the sushi, it would have been much worse if I had eaten it, and then threw it right back up all over the counter.