Chinatown

We visited a store called Wing’s Live Poultry. This was a very smelly store. You could smell it on the sidewalk before you even walked in. There were chickens stacked about six feet tall in cages with about two to a cage. When you buy your chicken, they cut the head off and sell it to you with feathers and everything. We lasted about 30 seconds in this store before leaving on account of the stench. After the Chinese chicken store we went to a Chinese bakery. Everything in the bakery looked good but most of the stuff was rather odd. I had a pork bun which is a sweet bun with pork in the middle; it was very delicious, but I guess it is an acquired taste because no one else did. In addition to the meat pastry there were egg yolk filled, shrimp filled, yellow rice cake and other odd baked creations. From the first Chinese bakery, we proceeded into another that looked considerably more popular and tasty. The second bakery contained delicious creations such as Chinese fruit tarts, red bean filled fried donuts, bubble tea, and other inviting dishes. It was considerably more enjoyable. We then visited a Chinese Herbal Pharmacy, as well as a number of Asian markets. There were offerings we had never seen before: soy soaked duck, fried and spicy chicken feet, pigs feet, tongues from a variety of animals, live eels, okra, durian, lotus root, Chinese okra, and duck web to name a few. For lunch we went to a Vietnamese restaurant, where the people welcomed us with open arms. Vietnamese restaurants are well known for serving delicious soups. We discovered that Vietnamese food is much more healthy than Chinese, because of the use of fresh vegetables, and absence of MSG as well as oil; it left us with a clean feeling afterwards. They told us that they eat rice with every meal, and never have dessert. Back to the hostel to blog. We will have Brazilian BBQ for dinner.