Fishy ...

Today we split up early, Mark and I rising at 5AM to make a trip and behind the scenes tour of the Sydney Fish Markets, the largest of its kind in the southern hemisphere so we are told. making our way down to Central Station was fantastic, as this is the location we need to leave from for our trip to the Sydeny showgrounds. we caught the Light Rail which is basically a cross between a tram and rail carrage. lovely smooth ride, clean large and it takes the pressure off the main rail network.

$2.50 and 15mins later we are there. arriving somewhat 40mins too early for our tour we felt kinda lost, no signs or markings for the tour, but we knew we were at the right location at least :) time came, more people arrived and the tour began, and for a measly $20 you got an hour tour and free coffee. basically taking us through the working operations of the place, how its auctioning system works and buying methods. we then moved to the floor to sample some of the different species on offer, everything from your humble snapper to john dory, flathead, bream, all manner of crustaceans, right up to your large bluefin tunas and oddities like cuttlefish, mudcrab, deep sea crab. all in all it was fantastic! the female guide we had was often asking questions of "what species is this?" "how do you tell the female from the male?" etc etc, i think we stunned her and the crowd on just how much we knew. she asked if we were chefs, ..... yes for one, the others just a full time recreational fisherman and a part time graphic designer.

well that was a great start, however i had the unfortunate thing of losing my debit card happen mid morning which left a sour taste. no biggy, lost a small bit of money, ran to ANZ, cancel the card, ordered a new one and transfered the other funds out to my savings account and i was rolling. it just so happened i got a brand new service attendant on my counter and i basically had to do everything myself on the phone.

the rest of the day was spent shopping generally in the city and hitting a comic store. Kings Comics should be a staple for any illustrator to jump to when here. great selection and well set out the store was a pleasure to be in. and they had DMZ!. still not up to the high standards found in NYC.

tomorrow is flexible, but i hear the rumblings of another early start.