The Busan Cooperative Fish Market, like the old Fulton Fish Market (and as we would later find out, Tsukiji) is in an aging, crowded building. The market's future modernized home is under construction next door. Vendors call out to you as you walk by each stall, pointing out what's particularly good that day and offering you a better price than the next guy.
Scattered along the streets surrounding the market are small restaurants prominently displaying tanks of live seafood. The proprietors come out as you walk by, offering you a table and explaining how good their seafood is. Between the restaurants are other market vendors, presumably crowded out of the central market or unable to pay its fees. It's a chilly grey morning and some have built wood fires to stay warm.
Every time I see blowfish I think of Homer Simpson yelling, "Fugu me!" Some fresh fugu is available, but most of it imported frozen from China, like these shown here. We would later find out that it is not fugu season.
They offer hearty stews and porridges for the local workers but they will also cook up your your market purchases. Here, our fishmonger is bagging a particularly fiesty fish that would later break through two plastic bags, be chased down several steps, stab my hands with its fins, and damage my camera. A dutch oven would have been more a appropriate storage container. For a moment I considered setting it free.
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