Nowhere are shop keepers more concerned with rain: the mile long alley is filled with dried things. Mushrooms are the size of baby's heads, buckets overflow with dried roses, chamomile, green tea, jasmine, long stalks of roots, nest-like bundles. As the clouds darken over the market, people dive behind their wares to grab umbrellas, ponchos, tarps.
At the intersection of dried market road and pets-for-sale (piles of kittens, puppies, turtles in small cages..oh please let it be pets for sale) lane, a man sells small scorpions from a bowl. They click and clack to try to escape the red plastic walls.
Dinner last night was hot pot with our colleague (who is from Guangzhou and is spending her summer here), her friend and his family. You pick your ingredients from the displays upon entering: tanks of fish, turtles and shellfish, bowls of fresh vegetables, piles of bloody meat, baskets of what I think were worms, and yes, scorpions. Each dish is brought one by one, and one by one each dish is put in a pot of boiling rice in the middle of the table. Drink more tea, our host urge, it will help you eat more.
After dinner, we walked along the river, which reflected the neon light displays as far as we could see. Bored looking women in prom dresses stood outside nightclubs beckoning us to come in and dance. We declined.
It is steamy here, but less hot. Sensory overload.
No comments:
Post a Comment