in panama, i had a day to myself so i got up early, left the hotel, explored around the city, and found some cool places. take the Mercado De Mariscos for example. this is the main fish market in panama city. all the fish that goes to restaurants comes through here. as i entered, i was wondering why there was a japanese flag on the sign??? do you know why?

once inside, the smell hit my nose. a typical fishy smell in every fish market around the world. you either love it, or hate it, or throw up in it. haha. it was cool to see all the different kinds of fish species. some we have in hawaii, most we don’t.

the shrimp looked pretty good.

one thing i noticed was the fish and shrimp wasn’t the freshest. it looked a few days old and had a strong fishy smell. but i guess after you cook it, you will never know.

panamanian lobsters. yummy!

pargo is one of the hardest reef fish to land. spearing it is hard enough, but pulling it out of his hole 70′ deep down is the challenge. i speared huge 3 pargos in mexico last year and almost drowned on those 3 times. i’m not interested in spearing pargo’s anymore. it’s just too much work.

this is my favorite place to stand. watching them clean and cut the fish is my favorite thing. every country has it’s own technique and it’s interesting to watch. even that little boy was fascinated. we both stood there for over an hour just watching.