Bad Pun Alert!

My apologies to all those out there in the blogosphere that thought me perished or worse.  I confess I don't have a good excuse for such a lapse in updating, other than the fact that I haven't been taking photos of much worth posting about.  However, I did find a great little food market in town that, while I probably will only be purchasing fruit and veggies from, is still a lot of fun to explore.

First off, I would like to explain Zhongshan a little bit more.  It's a very Westernized city (by Chinese standards) in the south of Guangdong province, which is in the southernmost part of China.  On the map, it's written in black and located north of Macau.  Zhongshan maintains around 20 town subdivisions, the one in which I live being Kai Yin.  Kai Yin is a relatively new development located outside the main downtown area, so it's not uncommon to meet people in town who haven't heard of it.  It's a very safe city, and though we white people get stared at a LOT, I've never felt insecure here.

To get to downtown Zhongshan where all the major everything is located, the most convenient solution is the Kai Yin bus system, which runs hourly from about six in the morning to eleven at night.  It costs 1 RMB to get to the food market stop, which is the first one in town, and every stop after that costs 2.5 RMB.  That translates to 14 cents and 36 cents American per ticket, respectively.  Here's our cute bus.  The drivers regularly compete with one another to see who can get the most air when driving over curb corners at highway speeds.  Nicole, you remember that time in Yueyang when you flew right off the seat of the tour bus?  Yeah, that's a fairly common thing.

Here's the food market bus stop in town.  Notice how people have parked their scooters on the sidewalk.  One thing you have to remember when walking on sidewalks in China is that they aren't completely restricted to pedestrians.  I regularly get honked at by scooters and cars alike as they try to pass me when I'm strolling along, obliviously window-shopping.

Here's the front of the food market.  It's under one of my favorite stores, Suning.  They have all sorts of electronics, home décor, and even an English book department.

Fruit stands outside of the food market.  The peeps out front'll try to gouge you, so I recommend buying inside.

There are two little flower shops in the alley leading into the market.  It always smells nice in front of them, which is quite a contrast to the... pungent... odors to be found inside.  Those of you with sensitive stomachs, look out for the warning below.

Probably one of the saddest things about living in China is that I never get to eat pineapple.  They just don't have it.  Of course, kiwi is always in season, so I suppose it's a trade-off.

There's the characteristic dragon fruit near the front.  They're surprisingly bland.  It's a shame, since they're so goofy looking.  Actually, my head teacher is going to be a dragon fruit for Halloween.  I think they are really cute.

This lady had a stand with all sorts of eggs for sale.  I think these look like quail eggs, but I'm no eggspert.  Haha.  Wow.  I'll refrain from using such incriminating language from now on.  Moving on!

This is the lady with the egg stand.  Here she is shelling nuts of some kind.

***MILD BLOOD AND GUTS ALERT***

These pictures really aren't that bad, but to avoid any possible liability suits, don't say I didn't warn you. 

 

And here we come to the really fun part!  Dead things!  Dead things chopped up and dripping on the floor!

Good thing I have a stomach of steel.  I saw some pretty nasty things here.  I loved it.  That is, I loved it until I got to the buckets of live worms.

The lady chopping up fish from the photo above stooped to wash off whatever that is in a bucket, so I snapped a pic.

I couldn't tell if these things were alive or not, but they were horrifying nonetheless.

And a bunch of big, ugly flat fish.

Ok, this was GROSS.  That's a tray of live wormy things on the left.  No joke.  WORMS!  I almost puked all over them.  I don't have the foggiest idea what the things directly above that pan are, and I didn't stick around long enough to figure out that particular mystery.  Though it looks like snails on the right.  Definitely do yourself a favor and enlarge this photo; it's quite... enlightening.

click photo to embiggen

Whew!  Made it past the real stomach-churning stuff.  I saw tons of live foul there, in addition to these chickens and ducks.  Apparently dove is a local delicacy, and sure enough, a man next to this one had cages full of them.  I don't know if such a small bird would be worth eating.

Anyway, it's good to be back into the blogging loop.  I'm going to put up some pictures of my apartment (finally) tomorrow, so look out for that post.