Getting to Toyosu Fish Market
Toyosu Market has a station inside it and that station is no use to you. The auction starts before the first train, so the real question is which taxi from where, or whether to move hotels for one night. Toyosu Market tours answer it three different ways, and three of them put the ride inside the fare.
The problem: your train does not run yet
Nothing runs early enough. The first Yurikamome train reaches the market well after the auction starts, so a five o'clock arrival from anywhere but Toyosu itself means a taxi. That single fact is the reason a guided morning here costs what it costs: nobody is selling you access to a market that lets everybody in free, they are selling you a car at half past four.
Two of the operators say so in their own listings and recommend staying in Toyosu, Tsukiji and Ginza for exactly this reason.
By taxi, from where most people stay
The one advantage of the hour is that the roads are empty. A journey that takes forty minutes at nine in the morning takes half that at half past four, and every hotel in Tokyo can call a car for you the night before. Times below are approximate and assume clear roads.
| Staying in | Roughly, on empty roads | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Toyosu | Under 10 minutes, or walk | The only district where you can skip the taxi |
| Tsukiji | About 10 minutes | Also the district your morning probably ends in |
| Ginza | 10 to 15 minutes | The most common choice, and well supplied with cars |
| Tokyo Station and Nihonbashi | About 15 minutes | Where the fish market started |
| Shinagawa | About 20 minutes | Straightforward run along the bay |
| Asakusa | 20 to 25 minutes | Long enough that you want the car booked ahead |
| Shibuya | About 25 minutes | Across the city; book the night before |
| Shinjuku | 25 to 30 minutes | The longest common run; set two alarms |
By Yurikamome, if you are coming later
Shijo-mae Station sits inside the market complex on the Yurikamome, an automated line that runs out over the bay from Shimbashi, and the walk to the entrances is about three minutes. It is a genuinely good ride, with the water on both sides, and it is the right way to arrive if you are coming for the shops, the restaurants or the rooftop rather than for the auction.
The escalator shutters at Shijo-mae Station stay down until five, so before then take the stairs or the lift to the second-floor gate.
By Toei bus, and by the Tokyo BRT
Toei buses stop at Shijo-mae Eki-mae, beside the station, and the Tokyo BRT runs to Toyosu Market from Shimbashi and Toranomon. Neither runs early enough for the auction either. They matter on the way out: after the market, a bus to Tsukiji takes about a quarter of an hour and is the route most of these mornings use.
Staying near enough to walk
If the auction is the reason for the trip, one night in the right district removes every other problem. Toyosu itself puts you inside walking distance and has the hotels to prove it. Tsukiji and Ginza are ten to fifteen minutes away by car and give you a better evening beforehand.
It does not have to be the whole stay. Moving hotels for a single night is a small inconvenience against a taxi across the city in the dark, and it means you can walk back and go to bed at nine.
Finding the entrance once you arrive
Enter from the pedestrian deck. There are three visitor entrances, one on each block, and the ground floor of the management building is not one of them.
Block 7 is the one you want. The tuna auction corridor runs in the Fisheries Wholesale Market Building, and ballot winners meet at the PR Corner in the management building beside it.
There is no visitor parking. None, and nowhere to leave a bicycle either, so a taxi has to drop you and go.
Leave the luggage. The corridors are narrow and there is nowhere sensible to put a case.
The map page sets out which building holds what, and visitor information has the opening hours.
Or let the taxi be somebody else's problem
Three of these departures include the ride to the market and two of them collect you at your hotel door, which is the whole difference between the fares.
Toyosu Fish Market Tours lists every one of them with its meeting point.