Tuna tuna tuna

Tsukiji, Tokyo -- the biggest fish market in the world.

Tuna is the most expensive fish that is sold in large quantities (I think) and so it deserves a special auction of its own. There are many different grades of tuna. Fatty tuna, canned tuna.

A trip to this market requires you to get up at 4-5 am and take a taxi (subway is closed). Then, you have to navigate to the "inner market" where tuna is sold.

Vendors (wholesalers, large restaurants) try to figure out which tunas are the best. They use an ice pick to hack at the tuna and feel it with their fingers. I don't know what they're feeling for. At this time of the year, most of the tunas were frozen.

It's kind of like the stock market, you have to have a seat in order to bid. Each fish or lot of fish takes less than a minute to sell.

After they're sold, they drag them out of the building to either the wholesalers right outside of this room, or to process and ship to other places (probably only the best sushi restaurants outside of Japan get tuna from here).

They cut the frozen tuna with the saws that we used to use in woodshop in 8th grade. They're frozen, so they're rock hard.

The packing and shipping of tuna uses a ridiculous amount of styrofoam. 

This was taken a week before the trip to the fish market, because it's kind of hard to eat fish after visiting the market especially at 6am. But it sure is delicious.