The seafood market is a place I visit every time I go to Guangzhou. It's pretty far away from where I live, but I make the effort to go there at least once. So what's the big deal with this seafood market? It's open air and it's huge. The stalls change every time you go there and you can bet that it's the freshest you can get.
To be more specific, the market is located at Huangsha Wharf. Before entering the open air market, we entered this building that was another seafood wholesale place. Mind you it was a very hot and humid day in Southern China and we (my mom and I) were in dire search of a restroom to "freshen up". The building was essentially a maze like how they depict Kowloon in old movies. As a tourist, this would be the last place you want to be 'cause it looks scary as fuck.
There are seafood stalls on each floor and alleys just filled with mostly young men working. There's people picking out shrimp or cleaning the fish guts. Whatever it is, it's very dirty and fairly hot. I saw tubs of mucky water lined against the wall. There are managers and businessmen with a inventory sheet coming to pick up goods or to order. Clearly my mom and I didn't belong here, but it opened my eyes a bit. People were working in these terrible places to make a living. Most of the people came from other provinces and by the looks of it, they probably barely finished high school or ditched high school altogether.
When we left the building, we headed to the seafood market. Ahh, fresh air. Still hot though. My shoes were dirty as hell when I left the market. There's a lot of sand and grit in the market. Since it's seafood, you can expect a huge deal of water which is why most people go there in rubber boots. Never put on your best shoes in the Huangsha Seafood Market. If you're icky about it, leave. We visited a bunch of stalls and purchased a variety of seafoods to cook for the night.
The day we went on was also a rainy day so some stalls decided to close shop entirely. We wandered to one of the buildings that sold conch. One honest businessman sold us a kilo's worth of conch. He didn't skimp on the weight like other businesses by soaking them in water. The conch meat was the best. At another stand, we bought live abalone at 10 RMB each. This other guy tried to swindle us to get us to buy crabs. We bought 2 crabs at 25 RMB to try. They didn't taste good at all. Lastly, we decided to try this thing called a "sand worm" in Chinese. Wikipedia calls them lugworms. Like the name suggests, it's a worm that lives in the sands and I guess they have a way of digging them out. They were sold at 25 RMB for 500g which is expensive considering how much they shrink after you cook them. They're hell to wash and they're gritty. Taste wise, they taste pretty good. It's just that there's barely any meat to them.
After leaving Huangsha, we walked further in search of a bus to take ourselves home. We didn't realize how close we were to Shamian, another district. As we walked along the river, we saw a lot of European looking buildings left down by the previous foreign occupation. There were an abundance of cafes and I think tiny bookshops, something you wouldn't expect to see in Southern China. Too bad this year, I never got to explore it. Even though I walked through dirty places, I actually kinda enjoyed the experience.
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