When I visit a new city, the first place I head for is the market. No matter where in the world I am, watching people take part in the everyday business of buying food for their next meal is both comforting and deeply fascinating, especially if the market is in a far-off locale. Thanks to Flickr, even if you can't take an international trip this summer, you can still get a glimpse of what market life is like from Sweden to Sudan.
In the photos above, giant tuna are auctioned off for enormous sums at the famous Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo. A weekly fish market sets up on a small boat in Wellington, New Zealand. A staggering bounty of vegetables are laid out at a market in Malaysia. Mushrooms, bags of potatoes and plastic buckets of cherries are for sale at a chilly market in Russia. And sheep make an orderly line at a cattle market in Kashgar, China.
Do you seek out new markets when you travel? Is there one that left a particular impression on you?
Related: The Top 10 Outdoor Food Markets - National Geographic
(Images: Flickr members 1. #Eelco; 2. hypertornado; 3. garryknight; 4. benpaarmann;5. stevecadman; 6. Bao Tri | P h o t o g r a p h y; 7. Bjørn Giesenbauer; 8. sidelife; 9. PhillipC; 10. 3rdparty!; 11. palindrome6996; 12. michaelclarkestuff; 13. Nenyaki; 14. Julia Manzerova; 15. Adam Jones, Ph.D., all licensed under Creative Commons)
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that first picture is amazing.
and so is the one from saigon... i went to a huge market in hoi an, vietnam a few years ago and it was quite the experience. the morning is FILLED with customers in the typical cone-shaped hats... i can't find a picture of my own right now, but a quick google image search gave me this:
http://www.welleatenpath.com/Hoi_An_fish_market.jpg
amazing.
I agree, the first photo shot from the top down is beautiful! I absolutely love farmers markets when I travel. It shows me the real culture of the area. Here are some of my photos on Flickr for when I visited a market in the Dominican Republic. http://www.flickr.com/photos/51807457@N02/
mmmm. I could smell each photo.
Yes, this is absolutely my favorite thing to do when I travel!
Here's the market I used to shop at a couple times a week when I lived in Bavaria:
http://and-here-we-are.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/marketing-we-go.html
Beautiful! I loved the Borough Market in London. Markets are definitely a must when traveling -- looks like I have so many to visit!
I love Rome and while it has gotten touristy, I still love the Campo de Fiori. It was the first place I saw mounds of exotic spices everywhere, and it's a wonderful memory.
This isn't my blog, but this was our weekly market when we lived in Switzerland. It was in Ferney-Voltaire, in France, just a few miles from our house in Geneva. How I miss it.
http://cernwife.blogspot.ca/2012/02/ferney-voltaires-marche.html
I loved going to il Mercato Centrale in Florence. The sights and smells - both good and bad - were what kept me going back a few times a week. The bustle of the people downstairs at the meat counters and at the produce stalls on the second level made me feel like I had stepped out of the present day and into a simpler time. The best part - the few dried fruit stands upstairs - specifically "The Fruit Man". Whatever fruit you wanted in dried form, he had.
The first place my dad would go to any time he visited a new country was a market (or a supermarket if for some reason there were any markets) He always says that you learn a lot about a country by what they sell in their markets.
Anyway, I love markets. Growing up, my parents went to a wet and dry market every weekend to buy supplies for the week. It was a cross between the market in the first picture and the market you see in the Hangover 2 movie. (I grew up in SE Asia, so it figures) Nothing beats the freshness of the food there. The meat at the market was still warm because the animal hadn't been dead for more than an hour. That's how fresh it was. (Sorry if that grosses you out) And the fish, let's just say it took me a long time to get use to frozen fish. Too bad changes in society have started closing down these markets in favor of chain supermarkets. :(
I'm a huge fan of markets when we travel and a must go are: Jimbaran Beach Fish Market in Bali (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ialla/6016170939/in/photostream/) and Chandni Chowk in Delhi(http://www.flickr.com/photos/ialla/2958858869/)