Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
TSUKIJI TROUBLES
It's been dubbed the “fish market at the centre of the world” for its influence on world seafood
prices. Generating
¥1.7 billion
in sales daily, Tsukiji is undoubtedly big business, but during
recent years the market's volume of trade has been dropping, along with the number of
wholesalers and middlemen who work there.
Uppermost on merchants' minds is the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's plan to shift
the market to
Toyosu
, 2km across the bay. The site was previously used by Tokyo Gas
and the highly toxic ground must be thoroughly cleaned up before any construction starts
on the new complex, where tourists are likely to be kept at arm's length from the action,
restricted to walkways overlooking the wholesale fish section. This will help solve the
problems caused in recent years by increasingly large groups of tourists disrupting the key
tuna auctions: on a couple of occasions the authorities have had to put a temporary ban
on visitor attendance.
Rules
now stipulate a maximum of 120 visitors, split into two groups
with separate viewing times in a cordoned off area; registration for a place starts at 5am,
though in warmer months the queues are such that you'd really have to be in line at 3am
to get a place.
7
Close to Tsukiji subway station is
Tsukiji Hongan-ji
(
ஙຊئࣉ
), one of the largest
and most Indian-looking of Tokyo's Buddhist temples. Pop inside to see the intricately
carved golden altar and cavernous interior, with room for a thousand worshippers.
Hama Rikyū Onshi Teien
ٶԸࣀఉԂ
• 1-1 Hamarikyūteien, Chūō-ku • Daily 9am-4.30pm • ¥300 • Shiodome station or ferry from Asakusa (see p.24)
The contrast between bustling Tsukiji and the traditional garden of
Hama Rikyū Onshi
Teien
, less than a ten-minute walk west, couldn't be more acute. This beautifully
designed park once belonged to the shogunate, who hunted ducks here. These days
the ducks, protected inside the garden's nature reserve, are no longer used for target
practice and only have to watch out for the large number of cats that wander the idly
twisting pathways.
There are three ponds, the largest spanned by a trellis-covered bridge that leads to
a floating teahouse,
Nakajima-no-Chaya
(¥500 for tea). Next to the entrance is a
sprawling, 300-year-old pine tree and a manicured lawn dotted with sculpted, stunted
trees. In early spring lilac wisteria hangs in fluffy bunches from trellises around the
central pond. From the Tokyo Bay side of the garden, there's a view across to the
Rainbow Bridge (see p.86), and you can see the floodgate which regulates how much
sea water flows in and out of the ponds with the tides.
By far the nicest way of approaching the gardens is to take a ferry from Asakusa,
down the Sumida-gawa (see p.24).
Tsukudashima
௭ౡ
• Tsukishima station
Across the Sumida-gawa from Tsukiji is
Tsukudashima
(meaning “island of rice fields”),
a tiny enclave of wooden houses and shops clustered around a backwater spanned by
a dinky red bridge. Sheltering in the shadow of the modern River City 21 residential
tower blocks, the area has a history stretching back to 1613, when a group of Ōsaka
fishermen were settled on the island by the shogun. In addition to providing food
for the castle, the fishermen were expected to report on any suspicious comings and
goings in the bay. For their spiritual protection, they built themselves the delightful
Sumiyoshi-jinja
(
ॅ٢ਆࣾ
), dedicated to the god of the sea. The roof of the well beside
the shrine's
torii
has eaves decorated with exquisite carvings of scenes from the
fishermen's lives. Every three years, on the first weekend in August, the shrine hosts the
Sumiyoshi Matsuri
festival
, during which a special
mikoshi
(portable shrine) is doused
TSUKIJI FISH MARKET
P.80
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