Some alleys of Hong Kong are fresh food markets that go on for blocks. This section specialized on fruits and vegetables. I was able to identify most of what I saw - from the common grape to the spiky-shelled lychee, the chartreuse-coloured starfruit and gorgeous dragonfruit. There remains a fruit I'm stumped by, and regret that I do not have a photograph of it. Shaped like a pear with the peel of an apple... one Hong Kongian translated the name as a "strawberry apple". The internal texture was also pear-like. It is one of the best pleasures of travel - discovering that there are fruits and animals, foods and plants that you've never heard of or imagined.
And there were meats. This picture is one of the tamer stalls - I'm amazed that meat is simply hung out in the open which seems to un-hygenic to my western eyes. I wonder if conditions are so different in Australia or just better hidden from view. Another shop had an entire pig hanging from his hind legs. And yet another had a range of even less-appetizing animal parts hanging from strings. I'll spare you the details. At restaurants there I never got more adventurous than pigeon (a favourite) and goose (a first for me).
Some fish were dead, most were alive. In the foreground of this photograph is a tank of live prawns. There were fish swimming in large buckets, occasionally making an attempt at escape and winding up on the footpath. There they would flail around until the shopkeeper scooped him back into his bucket. Somehow by mixing his metaphors the fish survives -- kicking the fishes, sleeping with the bucket.
Some alleys of Hong Kong are fresh food markets that go on for blocks. This section specialized on fruits and vegetables. I was able to identify most of what I saw - from the common grape to the spiky-shelled lychee, the chartreuse-coloured starfruit and gorgeous dragonfruit. There remains a fruit I'm stumped by, and regret that I do not have a photograph of it. Shaped like a pear with the peel of an apple... one Hong Kongian translated the name as a "strawberry apple". The internal texture was also pear-like. It is one of the best pleasures of travel - discovering that there are fruits and animals, foods and plants that you've never heard of or imagined.
And there were meats. This picture is one of the tamer stalls - I'm amazed that meat is simply hung out in the open which seems to un-hygenic to my western eyes. I wonder if conditions are so different in Australia or just better hidden from view. Another shop had an entire pig hanging from his hind legs. And yet another had a range of even less-appetizing animal parts hanging from strings. I'll spare you the details. At restaurants there I never got more adventurous than pigeon (a favourite) and goose (a first for me). 
Some fish were dead, most were alive. In the foreground of this photograph is a tank of live prawns. There were fish swimming in large buckets, occasionally making an attempt at escape and winding up on the footpath. There they would flail around until the shopkeeper scooped him back into his bucket. Somehow by mixing his metaphors the fish survives -- kicking the fishes, sleeping with the bucket.
No comments:
Post a Comment