This Little Piggy Went to Market

(karen)
We're finding it hard to believe that we've been in Sydney for over five weeks already. Staying that long in one place is actually kind of a strange experience because you start existing in a state that is somewhere between being on vacation and living a normal life. We've tried hard to keep ourselves busy but at some point you run out of "things to do", in a tourist sense. Having exhausted the Art Gallery, the Opera House, the Aquarium, lately we've found joy in exploring some of the local markets.

Our first stop was for lunch at the famous Sydney Fish Market. This is a city landmark and the largest such market in the Southern Hemisphere. (Take that with a grain of salt. Nearly everything is advertised as being "the largest XXXX in the Southern Hemisphere" which, due to the small total land mass down south, just reinforces that there's not a lot of competition.) We missed the fish auction that happens early in the morning, but we still were able to walk around the massive complex and check out the exotic catch on display.




Every kind of crustacean imaginable! Countless oysters! Iridescent silvery beauties! Octopus! Fish as big as your sister! Fish scales were a'flying as we wandered the delectable labrinyth. The picture above was just one small section of the entire market. For lunch we bought some sashimi grade salmon and smoked eel which they cut into bite sized portions for us. It was a great deal, far cheaper than going to a sushi restaurant.


We were still a bit hungry so we ordered a small basket of whitebait to cap off our lunch. These look like chips, but don't be fooled...they have eyes. I was dying to try them since we never got the chance in New Zealand. On the whole not extraordinary, but worth a nibble at least once in your life!



Over the weekend we hit Paddy's Market in Haymarket, near Chinatown. This is an Australia icon that has been serving as a marketplace for over 150 years. Never have I seen such a plethora of cheap crap in my life. There are aisles upon aisles of vendors selling everything from underwear to wigs, caged birds to electronics. People flock here by the hundreds to find bargins on clothes and jewelry while the rest of us look for cheesy souveniers to get the folks back home (ye be warned!)




Later we stopped by the open air night market in Chinatown where we found more jewlery and clothes for sale (sorry, no photos). Even more intriguing were the many stalls selling dumplings, rolls, buns, and other dim sum style foods. I would love to have sampled these but I was too full from dinner earlier.

In all, visiting these markets has been a great opportunity to see the personality of this city and I'm glad to have had the opportunity.