Fish Market

While we were in Seattle we visited the fish market.  I was totally taken with the size of the fish and seafood and wished we could have bought some for dinner.  But since we were just passing through we had to pass.

When we first arrived in Seoul some of our new friends took us to the Korean fish market.  It was an impressive and completely overwhelming experience.  It made the Seattle fish market look like a local supermarket seafood case.  Since we had just arrived in Korea I was still jet-lagged and wide eyed when we went the first time so I didn't take any pictures.  But we decided to go back to celebrate Russ' birthday and since I am now an "experienced" Korean tourist I took a bunch of pictures to share with you all.

This is one place that is fairly easy to drive to, but since we went on a holiday weekend we decided to take the subway.  It is a short 2 stop ride from the base.  As soon as you exit the subway you immediately begin to smell the fish smell.  As you walk over the bridge it continues to get stronger and you know for sure you are walking in the correct direction.  All of the sudden you come to a short wall you can look over and this is what you see:

The market is in a huge open warehouse and it is massive.

The market is very loosely divided up.  Most of the vendors that are near each other sell the same things.  So if you are looking for shrimp you can go to one section, salmon another section, squid another and so on. It is completely overwhelming to try to pick out seafood there.  Everything is done in the metric system so you have to not only convert American Dollars to Korean Won in your head to figure out if you are getting a good deal (you have to pay in Won), the vendors don't speak any English so you have to speak Korean to them (or use a lot of pointy-talky), everything is in Kilograms instead of Pounds and you are expected to bargain.  Thankfully, this is all right up my alley (learning the Korean numbers so I could shop was one of the first things I did upon arriving here and I have used that skill many times over the past few months), Russ let me pretty much take care of the purchases. 

We decided we wanted some salmon and shrimp so that is what we went on a hunt for, but there are so many different types of seafood there to choose from.
The scallops are huge-

Some of them are about the size of my fist

 Tons of crabs-

Octopus-

They were massive.

In the bucket are live octopus that you can purchase. 

Fish of all kinds-

There are some areas where they have live fish and you can pick the exact live fish you want to eat for dinner. 

 And there are many things we have no idea what they are- (and I kindof think it is better that way)

 For the most part the seafood is very cheap and since you are expected to bargain you can even get a  better deal.  We found some good looking shrimp.

For the salmon you can tell them how you want to eat it and they will cut it up for you.  Part of it we wanted sashimi (raw-sushi style) and the other part we wanted to cook.
Here the lady is cutting our salmon.

After you have purchased your seafood you can take it upstairs to one of the many small restaurants and you can pay them to cook it for you. 

waiting for their salmon

Russ and I prefer the fish raw.

Your meal comes with the free sides of kimchi and other vegetables.

 We purchased 1 Kilo of shrimp (about 2.2 lbs) and it was less then $12.00 and they were huge.  The only drawback...they still had the heads (including the eyeballs) on them.

Acting a bit immature with our shrimp.  Because we are American and speak English, we draw attention to ourselves everywhere we go.  But when we are fooling around with our shrimp we really draw attention to ourselves as displayed by the people behind us. 

 The girls enjoyed their salmon.

The raw seafood is fairly cheap to purchase, but the cooking it is more expensive.  Overall though for a big seafood meal it is very inexpensive.  Much less money and much more fresh then you would ever pay in the states.   A very good "Korean" experience for our family.