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On October 11, the Toyosu market opens with traditional prayers of success. Seafood, vegetable and fruit auctions were organized at the new facilities. (Tsubasa Setoguchi)
The animated auction calls were made during the brand new incarnation of "The Kitchen of Japan" at the beginning of October 11, when the first auction of the Toyosu fish market began.
This state-of-the-art facility in Tokyo's Koto district opened at midnight after a costly two-year delay.
Its predecessor, Tsukiji's aging market in the Chuo district, officially closed on October 6, after 83 years of operation.
The auction for tuna in the delocalised market started at 5.30 am and several hundred fish passed under the hammer of the proverb.
The room temperature in the auction room has been set at 14.5 degrees to keep the fish fresh. The floor is painted green to help potential buyers check the red flesh of the fish.
A small fire broke out on a turret truck around 2:50 am but was turned off about 30 minutes later, according to the Tokyo Fire Department. Nobody was hurt.
Unlike the old market, the new buildings have a closed structure to ensure stable control of the room temperature and better hygiene.
The bidders raised the prices as a sign of celebration of the inauguration of the new market. A 214-kilogram tuna from the Minmaya wharf in Aomori prefecture reached the highest price of 4.28 million yen ($ 38,000), while a 400-gram box of sea urchin meat reported 200,000 yen.
Wishing buyers of fish restaurants and retailers celebrated with their usual merchants in the mid-size section, comprising approximately 490 booths.
"First shipment" banners flew past shops as turret trucks shuttled for inaugural purchases.
"There are problems to be solved, but I am pleased that we are the first traders to have started the Toyosu market's history," said Hiroshi Utagawa, third-generation owner of Daiyoshi, an intermediate wholesaler founded in Japan. 1940.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has spent 570 billion yen to build the facility, which occupies 40.7 hectares of land, about 1.7 times the size of the Tsukiji market.
You could see some buyers holding a map to make their way through this sprawling complex.
"I'm having a hard time getting used to it," a sushi restaurant owner laughed.
A woman who works at the market and lives in Arakawa Ward said, "It took me 30 minutes to go to the Tsukiji market, but it took an hour today and the train costs are also double."
Sushi restaurants, as well as other restaurants and shops that were on the Tsukiji market, also moved. They will open to the public and tourists from 13 October.
LONG PERIOD COMING SOON
The metropolitan government decided to relocate the Tsukiji market in 2001.
In 2008, high concentrations of benzene, approximately 43,000 times the environmental safety standard, were detected at the site previously occupied by a Tokyo Gas Co. plant.
After being elected governor of Tokyo in 2016, Yuriko Koike decided to postpone the relocation for security reasons.
The steps to decontaminate the site were not carried out properly and benzene concentrations remained high, delaying the opening of two years.
The dismantling of the Tsukiji market began on 11 October. The area will be converted to a car depot by 2020 to transport athletes and coaches to the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.
(Naomi Nishimura, Noriyasu Nukui and Yuka Ariyoshi contributed to this article.)
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