Up with the fishes

This was the first day of our proper tour and we had an early start to visit the Tokyo fish market. It's the largest fish market in the world and its tuna auctions are now so famous that you have to start queueing at 4am to even have a chance of being one of the 60 people allowed in each morning. We didn't even try, given that apparently large groups of Chinese tourists regularly turn up too. We did tour the market once it was open to the general public though, and had the obligatory sushi breakfast (delicious but a challenge at 8am). Everything is incredibly fresh and in some cases we saw traders cutting up creatures that were clearly still alive, which made me feel rather queasy.

The fish market is being relocated, as has happened in other cities such as London. Tokyo real estate is the most expensive in the world, so fish traders are taking up valuable office space, it seems.