China Trip, Day 2, Food Market

WARNING!: The following post may contain content unsuitable for those with a weak stomach.

We had an interesting evening after seeing the Great Wall and the Summer Palace. We went to a food market. It was a strip of at least 200 booths, all selling the same kinds of foods. And let me tell ya, it was a VERY interesting smorgasbord!

A Bit of Everything.

Top left: Fried SCORPIONS. Also, the oval shaped brown things are SILKWORMS. Top right: Crabs and some other things. Bottom left: STARFISH, SEA URCHINS, the pale things dangling off the edge are either some kind of SQUID or RAW SEAHORSES. They had both. Bottom right: More interesting sea food.

Okay, this was really strange to see - SEAHORSES on a stick (right). And I could't tell what the things on the left were.

When I walked up to take this picture, the guy at the booth held up one of the sticks on the top row with the long brown things on them and said, "Try CENTIPEDE. Very delicious." When I didn't act like I was going to buy any centipede, he held up one of the sticks with the white chunks on it, and said "SNAKE MEAT." I didn't try anything.

A group photo with a couple of tour guides.

Mike didn't work up the guts to try anything during our short visit to the food market, and as I already mentioned, neither did I. Although, Mike has eaten some pretty crazy things before (on his mission), and he said he would have tried something if it weren't for the horrible smell emanating from the booths as we walked the length of the market. The tour guide said that the smell was actually just the scent of tofu deep frying. I'm not so sure... Anyway, there were plenty of poeple just eatin' this stuff up, though. And I'm definitely not criticizing. It was just very interesting. We're used to pretzels and popcorn.

Another video. Like most of the other videos I've posted, its really shaky and not neccessarily worth watching, but here it is if you are interested.