Any travel book about Japan will tell you that if you have one day to spend in Tokyo, you need to visit the fish market, or as the Japanese refer to it, Tsukiji. To be honest, I had no interest in taking this trip since the only time the market is to be seen is before the crack of dawn as they unload and auction off the tuna. Of course, as a trader, the first thing Jake wanted to see on his one-week vacation was Tsukiji. So I rounded up a bunch of my work mates and we woke up at 3:45am and started our trip.

My eyes aren't even open all the way as I am greeted by the images of blimp-sized tuna. To ensure that I will be scarred for the rest of my life, their tails are cut off so you can see the insides of the fish. (The real reason they do this is to see how bloody the tuna is since that supposedly says something about its quality.)

Once we've seen the auctioning, we start walking around as people are setting up their boxes. There is so much going on that my manager, Damian, asked a friend for a map to ensure we visit all the neat spots. We're trying to follow the map but we quickly realize how hopeless it is.

As I desperately try to remove the images of bloody fish from my mind, we run into the stand of this sweet man who's slashing his fishie into pieces. Yum.