Saturday, March 28, 2009

Grocery Shopping!

It's Saturday night here. I just finished the Friday blog earlier today...thought I'd get ahead of the game and post today's. I didn't do a whole lot today. I was kind of beat. I did go back to the "DVD Rental Store". That's such a great experience. It's like your a spy in a movie. Secret knock at the door...the whole process is just awesome!

By the way, if you haven't seen Don't Mess With The Zohan, I highly recommend it. I was crying laughing at parts of that movie! Well worth the rental.

I picked up a bunch more DVD's today. I won't bore you with the details but I did get a few that I don't think are out yet.

Slum Dog Millionaire
Taken
Milk


I also picked up Band of Brothers. It's one of my favorite things to watch. I have it back in the states, but for a grand total of 4 bucks, I was able to "Rent" it here. So all good there.

This morning the Nuggets and Mavericks were on local Chinese TV. That was fun to watch. Pretty funny listening to the Chinese broadcast. I thought they would be more animated...they aren't...they just kind of talk every once in a while. There are big gaps of silence...kind of weird.

When I went to dinner at Rick and Susan's apartment, Susan had told me about a local Chinese supermarket that was behind my hotel. She bought everything we ate there. So today I decided to go check that out.

WOW! What an experience!

The doorman from the hotel walked me there, because I had no idea where it was. We walked for about 5 minutes, then he points at this giant warehouse looking building. He keeps saying, "Go in". Now, I'm looking at this building...it looks like the type of abandoned building you see in a movie, where the bad guys do a hostage exchange.

So I walk up a ramp that has a huge over head door with a giant clothe keeping the cold out. I push through it and am in the middle of a giant market type thing! I look around and there is all kinds of action going on! This place has everything, but it's all local vendors. You have to see it to believe it. They have spices, fruit, vegetables, meat, packaged goods...you name it they have it in here. This is where most Chinese people shop.

So I start to walk in...people start to see me and get quite. They are in awe of my size. I say Ni Hao, then everything goes back to normal.

I start walking around. I pass the meat section....they have all kinds of stuff (I'm going back with my camera). At first you see some normal stuff, pork loin, beef, ribs...stuff like that....then a couple booths in things change.

You still have all the meat, it looks OK, although I don't think the animals died to far from here. It looks awful fresh. Then next to the meat are organs...pig hearts, livers, kidneys, things I can't identify. It's all sitting right out there. Nothing is wrapped, just sitting on the table. Pigs feet, just chopped off and lined up next to the hearts! I didn't know pigs hearts were so big...weird.

It was pretty strange, people were picking things up and shoving them in my face to see. If you're an Ex-Pat, they know you have money...so they step up their game. I was looking at the pig hearts and the lady grabbed one and stuck it about 2 inches from my face. So funny!!!!

I found the fruit and vegetable section down from the pigs hearts. It was great! Everything is fresh..you just have to wash it good. I bought what would be three pre-packaged baskets worth of strawberries, a dozen apples, 6 oranges, and 4 mango's. It came to 7 dollars American.

Now that I can count to ten in Chinese on one hand, math gets a lot easier to communicate. So I get my stuff, but have no idea how to get back out. (Which ended up being a good thing)

So I walk around, taking it all in...people holding things up to my face, trying to get me to buy...weird stuff...no idea what it was. I see another big over head door with a tarp covering it. I figure that's an exit...wrong!

I walk through, and now am in a fish market. It smells like the Pacific ocean got emptied of water and everything was sitting for a day or two on the bottom! It was crazy in here! The floor had water running across it from everything draining onto the floor.

If it's found in the Yellow Sea/Pacific Ocean...it's probably in here. There were Eels, Octopus, Squids, fish, shrimp, lobsters, and anything else you could imagine! Some stuff was in tanks, some things were alive but not in water...just squirming in giant barrels.

There were things that I have never seen before, but I can tell you in my wildest dreams I would never have imagined trying to eat! It's really incredible!

I passed a guy who was yelping pretty loud. I turned back when he yelled English boy! As I turned around, he had a giant meat clever and whacked the head off a huge fish! He brings the fish head over to me...leaves the rest of the fish on the table. Shows it to me with a big smile and I think asked me if I wanted to buy it? Just a giant fish head staring at me...how do you say no??? Ummm, pretty easily!

I saw a bucket of dried sea creatures. They kind of looked like shrimp, just REALLY little. I mean small, like an 1/4 inch long at best. The bucket was pretty big. They must eat them like peanuts or something. You'd have to eat like 40 of them just to know you ate something. I just stared at the bucket and wondered how long it took to catch enough to fill this bucket..was it worth it? We may never know.

Finally I found my way out of there! Great experience though!

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