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The world-renowned Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo held its final new year auction Tuesday, before the much loved fish and food nirvana will be relocated later in the year.
At this morning's auction, where prices of the fish can make the eyes water, a colossal 200 kg bluefin Tuna sold for a whopping 14 million yen (117,306 U.S. dollars), which is the equivalent of about 70,000 yen per kilogram.
Kiyomura Co. who operates sushi chains made the winning bid for the fish to be used in their restaurants. The company with its deep pockets, also made the winning bid on the opening day of the auction last year.
The president of Kiyomura, Kiyoshi Kimura, said after the winning bid Tuesday and of the final new year auction to be held at the current location that he was "full of emotion."
Prices last year were somewhat lower compared to this year and years gone by, however, with the costliest tuna going for 4.51 million yen in 2015 and 7.36 million yen a year earlier.
The last three years' winning bids, however, pale into insignificance when considering the record bid in 2013, which came in at a staggering 155.4 million yen (1.30 million U.S. dollars). The purchase was also made by Tokyo-based Kiyomura Co.
Following the Nihombashi Fish Market in Tokyo being destroyed in the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, it was relocated to the Tsukiji district and opened its doors in earnest in 1935. Such was the popularity of the market that the wider town saw trade boom and quickly became known as a prosperous and bustling part of the capital.
In Japan's economic boom years in the 1980's, Tsukiji became a popular hotspot for tourists visiting Japan, with visitors to the market allowed to enter the Inner Market or Jonai Shijo, although previously access was only granted to traders and professionals, and more recently the public and tourists were also granted access to the Outer Market, known as Jogai Shijo, where some of the freshest fish and vegetables are on sale to eat.
"There's no place like Tsukiji, it's one of a kind in the world. I go there in the early hours of the morning a couple of times a month as one of the chefs in a restaurant there is my friend, and that's the best time to eat the freshest sushi," Simon Hammond, 52, told Xinhua.
"I've been going to Tsukiji for the past decade or more and each time is a new and wild experience. Some of the chefs are so talented, the best in Tokyo if not Japan and the fish is like nothing you could eat anywhere else in the world, it's truly divine. I'll miss this place when it goes," Hammond, himself a qualified sushi chef albeit in California, said.
Similarly, Didi Omoto, 24, said that she will be utterly sad to see the market relocated. "It's so close to where I live so after a night out with my friends and I would go and eat the best sushi and sashimi, keep drinking and then we'd all crash out at my place, " Omoto said.
"Those nights and early mornings were some of the best times I' ve ever had. Thank you Tsukiji, not just for the fish, but also for the wonderful sake!" she added.
