For those of you who do not know, i am currently in China at the moment, more specificaly a fishing town called Qingdao, in the Shandong provence.

After hearing about the exotic fresh seafood markets in Qingdao, i caught a taxi 7km from my house to the markets (cost me a whole $2.5) and arrived at a scene of total chaos. There was screaming, yelling, blood flying from chopping boards, and a stench i could only describe as leaving a block of mulies in your esky for a week. I was a bit nervous approaching the displays, as sellers were very pushy and my chinese is very patchy and broken. There were people yelling at everyone, asking all sorts of questions and making all sorts of statements such as "what would you like today?" and "all this produce is fresh from this mornings boat" to which i did not know how to reply!

The whole seafood market would have been at least the size of the Morley galleriea, or a similar sized shopping center, and everyone sold all different species of fish, shellfish, invertabrates, and unidentifiable marine organisms. Upon reaching the first display, i noticed that i could not recognise one species of fish, although i could link them to species we find in australia. they had a fish that looked like it was crossed between a flathead and a flounder, although it had no tail what so ever, it was almost like a elongated oval shaped plate, with scales and a mouth. after walking deeper into the market, i started to recognise many species i was farmiliar with, such as pink snapper, sargent bakers, yellowtail kings, spanish mackeral, yellowfin tuna and big flounder. one pleasant suprising aspect of the market was the price of the fish. One kilo of pink snapper fillets was 25 yuan, which equals out to be $4.5 a kilo, so im planning on a omega 3 rich, fishy diet for the remainer of my stay :) 

Another interesting aspect of the market was that the fish on display were not on ice, or any sort of refrigeration device, which begs the question, How do they keep the fish fresh??

Well the answer is, people in china are very sceptical on the freshness on sea food, and just because a seller says the fish is fresh, not many people will believe their word. so in order to prove the freshness of a fish, all specimens are kept alive in large tanks, and at all times there will be a freshly killed fish on a chopping board, with the heart still beating and organs pumping, to show the freshness of a fish.

before leaving the market, i bought a kilo of snapper, which i will cook up tonight :)

On the way home i stopped by at a string of tackle shops.

The first store i entered, had pretty average fishing reels that i have never seen before or heard of, although they were all very cheap.

The next store i entered, looked a little bit more upmarket, and after looking around, my eyes layed upon a Stella. i asked the store staff if i could have a closer look, and upon inspection, it had no writing in it, no lables, no brands, no line capacity, no numbers or letters on the enitre reel, all it had was 5000sw and japan written on the reel seat. It felt like my stella at home, sounded my stella, but had no brand or writing. The price on it was 2000 yuan which is $370, so i dunno guys, whats your opinion on this? The exact same story for saltigas, and all high end shimano and daiwa gear. im thinking of buying one, but not 100% on the quality, although it all looks and feels legit!

There were also more lures, stickbaits, poppers, squid jigs you could poke a stick at, all at rediculously low prices. They had Daiwa pirates for 20 yuan each ($4) maria lures at 20 yuan each and other wierd brands that i've never heard of.

Sorry there were no pics. I tried to get a few snaps, but the sellers got very offended when i tried to take pictures of their fish. Dont know why. and sorry if it was a bit long or boring, just felt the need to share.

cheers guys

Jeff