Egg family has been drifting and fishing at sea for generations, because the hull of the fishing boat they live in is somewhat like an eggshell, so it is called egg family. Their menu is naturally dominated by seafood such as fish, shrimp, crab and snails. Eggs cook fish, shrimp, crabs and snails, which are different from those on land. Its unique fragrance drifted to people's homes on land not far from Waisha Island with the wind, which made people on land salivate.
Before the reform and opening up, under the background of the national economic silence, egg farmers in the northern overseas sand island also lived their own lives quietly, cooking the raw seafood that their family fished out of the sea against the wind and waves every day, and slowly tasting it with a cup of local wine soaked in seafood. At that time, they would never have thought that their seemingly simple routine would completely change the face of Waisha Island.
In the early days of reform and opening-up, the flavor of the egg family was first revealed, and the food stalls were simple and difficult to hide.
In the early days of reform and opening-up, the commodity consciousness of the egg family also woke up with the commodity consciousness of the whole country. In Tsim Sha Tsui, to the east of Waisha Island, there is an egg family who dares to venture into business. In their own egg shed, they opened the first seafood stall on Waisha Island, cooked raw seafood from the sea with their own fishing boats, and sold it to those who couldn't afford high-class restaurants at low prices. The business is surprisingly hot, and the money earned is much more than going to the sea to catch seafood against the wind and waves. As a result, egg families who used to only know how to make a living in the sea followed suit, and seafood stalls quickly appeared one after another in Waisha Island. In the early 1990s, with the development and construction boom of Beihai, there were 72 seafood stalls on Waisha Island, forming several food stall streets featuring eggs and seafood. It's not just eggheads who invest in seafood stalls here, but also many local mainlanders in Beihai and even mainlanders from other provinces. Diners have gradually changed from drivers to pulp sellers and become tourists from Beihai and all over the country.
At that time, the seafood stalls on Waisha Island were still very simple. There are no boxes or air conditioners in the shack randomly built with wooden columns and bamboo chips, and the dining tables are all on the beach. Diners stand on the white beach with their feet, look at the bright sea outside with their eyes, listen to the tidal music with their ears, let the gentle sea breeze blow all over their bodies, drink the local wine soaked in seafood, and munch the raw seafood, which makes them feel very comfortable. The crude seafood stalls outside the sand are particularly prosperous.
Whenever the sunset melts the gold on the sea, all kinds of cars carry all kinds of diners and tourists from home and abroad, cross the narrow Waisha Bridge and drive into the seafood stall dining area on Waisha Island. Rows of parking in front of the messy seafood stalls, a little late can not find parking spaces and dining seats. Inside and outside the bamboo shed of each seafood stall, diners with various local accents are filled, which is as lively as a folk wedding banquet and has become a unique landscape envied by many hotels in Beihai. Waisha Island is becoming more and more famous, so that there is a popular saying in Beihai tourism: You can't really visit Beihai without eating seafood, and you can't really eat seafood in Beihai unless you have eaten in Waisha Island.
At the end of the last century, the new scenic spots with neon lights changed greatly and were upgraded day by day.
By the end of 1990s, the planning and construction department of Beihai accepted the suggestions of Beihai citizens and tourists, and thought that the taste of seafood stalls in Waisha should be improved to match the beautiful urban scenery of Beihai. Therefore, seafood stalls in Waisha are all planned and designed in a unified way. Dismantle all the original messy and extremely simple bamboo and wood greenhouses, pave a straight road, open up a wide parking lot, and build dozens of new seafood greenhouses with steel pipes as columns and asbestos tiles as the top. In addition to the spacious and bright restaurant with a view of the sea, there are stalls with electric fans and air-conditioned boxes. In order to attract more tourists, dozens of new seafood greenhouses are trying to create an egg family style and fisherman culture. Some put one or two small fishing boats with white sails in front of the shed, some decorate the stalls as gondolas, and some build boxes into fishermen's huts. Fisherman's hemp fiber and bamboo hat are hung on the outer wall, and fisherman's fishing rod and bamboo fish basket are placed at the foot of the wall. Door curtains and curtains are fishing nets of all sizes, and the lights in restaurants, booths and boxes are all in the shape of fishing lights. The largest new-style seafood shed is simply called the Egg House shed. Every day, singers and dancers are invited to perform fisherman's style songs and dances for diners on the stage like fishing boats to help them eat. Waisha Island has become a famous tourist attraction in Beihai. During the peak season, more than 1 10,000 Chinese and foreign tourists are received every day. In recent years, it has received more than one million Chinese and foreign tourists every year, accounting for half of Beihai seafood catering industry, forming a new tourism pattern of playing in the silver beach and eating in the sand.
In the dawn of the new century, nine functional areas cover Waisha Island, and the family style of eggs coexists with modern atmosphere.
As time enters the new century, Beihai has re-planned the design and large-scale renovation of Yintan and Waisha Island through international bidding. The planning and design of Waisha Island is undertaken by Belgoring Hong Kong, an internationally renowned expert in planning and designing tourist attractions. Focus on the design concept of returning to the sea and publicize the seafood food culture to the extreme. On the basis of continuing and developing the cheap food stall style of Waisha Seafood Island, we will fully integrate the advantages of Waisha Seafood Island, such as watching the sea, fishing port, food and egg customs, and build Waisha Seafood Island into the largest seafood distribution center in China and the largest seafood catering cultural area in the world. The newly planned Waisha Seafood Island is divided into nine functional areas: entrance square area, Beihai local specialty restaurant area, Indonesian theme restaurant area, Singapore theme restaurant area, Vietnamese theme restaurant area, live seafood market area, dried seafood market area, Yuan Qi Park and aquatic entertainment area, which embodies the customs of Beihai Egg Family and Southeast Asian countries.
The renovation project of Beihai Waisha Seafood Island was invested and developed by Beihai Industrial Company, and it was carried out in two phases. The first phase of the project is an open seafood theme park, covering an area of 250 mu with a total construction area of 90,000 square meters. It is divided into four types of buildings: the first type is seafood restaurant and restaurants with Japanese, Indonesian and Beihai local customs, the second type is Vietnamese pedestrian street, the third type is seafood market, and the fourth type is pearl bay Hotel. The second phase of the project is a coastal leisure resort hotel group covering an area of 200 mu. In February of 200 1 year, the first phase of the project broke ground. After two years of construction, Japanese-style and Indonesian-style seafood dining areas, Vietnamese-style commercial pedestrian streets and seafood markets have been built and put into use.
From the Vietnamese-style commercial pedestrian street to the east, there are dried seafood wholesale and retail markets, pearl wholesale and retail markets and live fresh wholesale markets.
The wholesale and retail market of seafood dry goods is the largest seafood dry goods trading center around Beibu Gulf. More than 400 seafood dry goods retailers from coastal provinces and Vietnam operate all kinds of seafood dry goods made according to the traditional crafts of fishermen in Beihai, attracting tourists who have just tasted delicious seafood to buy them.
Pearl wholesale and retail market is the largest seawater pearl trading center in Guangxi. Jewelry in the exhibition hall is dazzling, mainly selling pearl ornaments, pearl medicines, pearl cosmetics and pearl health products made of seawater pearls produced in Beihai. There is also the Nanzhu Culture Exhibition Hall and the Pearl Quality Appraisal Center, which can not only let tourists know about the production and processing process of pearls and the long history of Nanzhu culture, but also identify the authenticity of pearls for tourists free of charge, prevent counterfeit goods from entering the market and ensure tourists to buy real seawater pearls and pearl series products.
The live fresh wholesale market is located at the easternmost part of Waisha Seafood Island, with an area of10.5 million square meters, with a fishing boat unloading dock, a large parking lot and a cold storage. There are also 70 large-scale live seafood health ponds, as well as all kinds of marine fish, shrimp, crab, conch, turtle and marine worms caught by fishermen in Beihai from Beibu Gulf. Unloaded from the dock and stocked in the live seafood health pool for customers to choose, packaged, loaded with large transport vehicles dedicated to transporting live seafood and transported to all parts of the country.
Today's outer sand seafood gourmet island has truly formed a tourism pattern of watching the sea and listening to the tide, picking pearls and picking shellfish to buy seafood. Most of the more than 3.8 million Chinese and foreign tourists who visited Beihai in 2002 tasted delicious seafood in Waisha Seafood Island. According to the plan, after the renovation project of Beihai Waisha Seafood Island is completed, it is possible to create three Guinness World Records: one is to become the world's largest theme seafood island, the other is to have the world's largest seafood storage pool, and the third is to have the world's largest seafood catering cultural area, which can accommodate 1.5 million people to taste delicious seafood at the same time. By then, whether viewed from land or sea, Waisha Seafood Island will be a fascinating fairyland on earth.