Last year my buddy Diego from Paris (he’s actually not French but Canadian but grew up in Texas, hence…) came to visit us in Tokyo last year in October. He’d never been to Japan before so it was his firs time in Asia and we had a great time running around Tokyo and seeing things as tourist. Different restaurants, temples, shrines, etc…it was totally fun to drink beer with a college buddy in a foreign land.
One morning we decided to take the 5AM subway to the Tsukiji wholesale fish market, the largest in the world. I mean its huge. Hundreds of different fish and other things that crawl in the sea (also swim) around that most of us would never thing of eating (sea cucumber, anyone?) But its a great experience to see.
The market is known for having a early morning tuna auction where they sell these huge sushi grade tunas for massive amounts of money. I am talking about thousands and thousands of dollars. From a quick internet search, one tuna sold for more close to $200,000! That’s some expensive sushi. its not gonna be a tuna sandwich anytime soon. I never seen the auction as its too tough to get there from where my father in law’s home is as the trains start at 5Am as does the auction. Don’t care to spend $100 to take a taxi to this event so…I’ve always gone later in the morning, not that 6AM is late.
As Diego and I walked around the market, we saw this tattooed guy slicing up a fish and Diego started to take pictures. The fish guy, was a bit tough looking, and tattoos mean something in Japan and his sleeves were very prominent. I knew better than to mess with him as did Diego but he noticed us. He looked at us crossed eyed and called us over. What caught my eye was this huge sword, rather a huge knife he used to cut fish. And as he beckoned us closer to him, I feared some chef would be serving fatty Americans at some market somewhere. Our samurai friend didn’t speak English nor did we speak enough Japanese to beg forgiveness and spare our lives.
Note…In recent years, Tsukiji has been besieged by foreign tourist, such as us, getting in the way, and mucking up the market one way or another.
Hence, I feared we would be sashimi. But we end up poorly communicating and our new friend ends up he was in a great mood and took a liking to us. He decided to cut off some very very very VERY (did I say very) fresh tuna from I think was from the eye area of the fish, poured some soy sauce, and insisted we eat super fresh sashimi with him. It was incredible. Its not often someone goes to a slaughterhouse and is served a burger so we got treated like kings. Amazing experience. The fish guys at the market actually hate all the foreign visitors so we were very surprised at how our host took care of us. After our quick breakfast, Diego was curious about the big knives he was using so the samurai let Diego hold the cutting knife and I snapped the photo.
Diego was so impressed with this photo and the experience that he talked about it almost every time we would chat about Japan. He begged me to go back to the market one day to see our friend, give him the picture and possibly a small gift of sake or something. I promised I would.
So…on this trip I made the early morning pilgrimage to Tsukiji to find our samurai friend. I walked around a bit and wasn’t sure where I’d find him but I knew eventually I would. I went to one of the same areas in the market and asked this one girl working in a booth of a fish market if she spoke English. Luckily enough she said yes. I showed her the picture and asked if she knew this guy. She screamed “Mo-chan!” (-chan is the endearing way Japanese address a close friend, child, etc…kinda like the way we would call a friend a nickname.) Miwa, the girl I met, actually knew M0-chan because Mo-chan was standing right next to her! I found the shop. Mo-chan, whose name is Moizuni, gave me that crossed eyed look but after he saw the photo he instantly recognized Diego and remembered that moment. Mo-chan bowed half a dozen times and was shocked I, rather we remembered him, and made a special trip to deliver the photo along with a small bottle of sake to him. He was rather touched and quiet surprised by our care in making sure we thanked him for his one day of kindness.
Miwa took our picture together and as of this writing, I don’t think Diego has seen it yet but I think he will be very happy to know Mo-chan remembered him. Sadly, Mo-chan and Miwa said their day’s catch was thin so no free and fresh sashimi. But now that I’m number one friend, I am sure next time I go back to see them at Okie Fish at Tsukiji, I am sure the soy sauce will flow again.