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Your support makes all the difference.Tokyo's main fish market is to suddenly re-impose a ban on tourists visiting the sprawling complex because of the disruption they cause to business. The ban comes into effect on Thursday, April 8 and will run for a month.
A similar one-month ban was introduced over the New Year periods in 2009 and 2010 after dealers at Tsukiji complained that visitors were misbehaving. Trading at the world's largest fish market begins well before dawn each day, with many foreign tourists deciding to visit after a night carousing in the nearby Ginza or Roppongi entertainment districts.
Traders complained that tourists had been "hugging" huge tuna in poses for photos, while others had licked fish. Video clips on the internet have also shown tourists riding around on the back of wholesalers' delivery trucks.
The market reacted initially by banning flash photography and limiting visitors' access to a cordoned-off area close to where the dealers bid for the latest arrivals, but the sheer number of visitors is overwhelming the market's facilities.
On April 5 alone, more than 500 sightseers attempted to crowd into the designated section to watch the tuna auction - an area that is only meant to hold a maximum of 80 people, market officials said. Others "disrupted" the transfer of fish within the market, they added.
Access to the auctions will be banned until May 10, although wholesale outlets and the surrounding shops and restaurants will remain open to visitors.
Tsukiji is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Tokyo, a result of a promotion campaign about a decade ago that has proved to be too effective.
The market covers 57 acres in Tokyo's Chuo Ward, handling 1 million tons of marine products, vegetables and fruit a year, worth around Y600 billion (€4.78 billion). More than 90 percent of the fish that is served up in the restaurants of Tokyo and the surrounding Kanto region passes through the hands of Tsukiji's legendary traders.
And its day-to-day business is certainly worth seeing; deals are done by men in colored caps that denote their company and they use hand signals to make their bids. In the winter, they wear heavy-duty boots to keep their feet dry and are bundled up against the wind that comes off the Sumida River. The narrow alleyways between the stores are rutted and have a constant coating of crushed ice. Electric trolleys scoot through the narrow gaps with crates on their flat-beds. Men gaff tuna carcasses that are still coated with rime and heave them onto hand trolleys.
Market officials hope the action will encourage visitors to behave appropriately when the ban ends on May 8. A state-of-the-art fish wholesale market is on the drawing board and will be better equipped to deal with large numbers of tourists when it is completed in the next few years.
JR
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