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Wholesaling Nemo | The Tsukiji Fish Market

gaijin on holiday, perhaps nowhere is this more evident than at Tokyo’s Tsukiji Fish Market.

Sleep in, and you’ve missed it, literally. On a typical day Tsukiji opens in a characteristic 3:00 AM mist and at 1:00 PM closes for cleaning, highlighted by the its main event – animated fish auctions that run from around 5:00 to 7:00 AM. The big star is tuna. Wholesale prices can easily reach into the tens of thousands of dollars for some varieties.

anthropological spectacle intensely impresses its audience with its aquatic assault on the senses. The cavernous indoor/outdoor market receives over 2000 metric tons of seafood daily, and supports a workforce of around 60,000 people, from wholesalers, distributors to the clean up crew.