Market Pics & Food Comas in Guangzhou

First a few more Vietnam pics- I still have one more set to post after this one, so it will give me a few days to build up some good China Photos for posting!
First of all, here is the INFAMOUS ("don't bring it into the hotel or we'll fine you") Durian Fruit:
There is something about this fruit that just makes me so unclear as to why anyone would want to eat it. First, it is covered in these sharp spikes. You don't want to hold it in your hands because, well, look at it! Sharp spikes! Looks quite inconvenient to pick up, let alone rifling around a bin of them at a market trying to find just the optimal Durian for your dining pleasure. Next, how in the heck DO you crack this thing open? I think you need a pretty big knife. Both for the sake of keeping your hands far away from the spike exterior as possible, and for the sake of getting through what appears to be pretty thick skin. Third- you get the thing open and you are knocked over by the horrible smell of it. The dirty, thick smell of old gym socks. And somehow, after all this, someone, at some point in time, thought it would be a good idea to put this thing in their mouth....
I don't know what these are called, but they are quite tasty & so pretty to look at! Inside they are a stark white fruit, with a texture similar toa watermelon, although a little more "soft" and little less "juicy", but spotted throughout with tiny black seeds similar to the seeds you see in a kiwi fruit. They are beautiful fruit inside and out! When they are very ripe they have a very nice flavor to them- mild but refreshing. I also just learned the name of the fruit from the photos of a couple days ago- the photo was of a woman sitting on the ground with two baskets of hard looking solid purple fruit about the size of small oranges, with her arms stretched over her head. They are MANGOSTEENS, and I think I'm in love. I had one for the first time yesterday and they are even sweeter and more wonderful than Mangos- although there are several big seeds, so it's a lucky day when you get a small section with no seed and you can luxuriate in the pure, unspoiled wonder of the fruit. I *just* learned that these awesome little spiky guys are called Rambutans. I had heard the name, but never knew what they looked like. I would have a whole basket of them on my dining room table if I could, just for the sheer beauty. This picture does not do them justice, especially so small- they are these vivid red & yellow fruit with soft spiky "hairs" of green sticking out all over. They are just gorgeous fruit! I did not try them yet, but I hear they are similar to a Lyche, with a watery white fruit & a seed in the middle, although I've been told they are drier than a Lyche.
All of the pics here are from the Ben Thanh Market in Ho Chi Minh. The Market is the next largest I've ever seen outside of the huge market in Bangkok- I know I'll get this wrong but the name is something like 'chat du chat' or something like that. That market is still probably 4 times larger (or more) than this market, but this one was amazing. I did not count, but it probably stretched for at least 25 aisles across one side, and maybe 20 aisles across another....You could buy anything in this market. fruit, meat, shoes, clothes, fabric, hair doo-dads, purses, chopsticks, anything. Name it & you can find it. Or, at least you can find a half dozen booths and more selling it. No guarantee you will find "the one" you are looking for, at least not when the selection looks like this much of the time:

Spices are one of my favorite things in markets. The colors, the smells, all say a lot about the local cuisine. I've seen spices in Markets in France, Italy, China, Thailand, Germany, Korea, Taiwan...they are all beautiful. Rich colors and richer scents...
If I didn't already have an overabundance of chopsticks at home, I would have brought one of each of these home. As is, I need to eat absolutely every meal with chopsticks for the next 5 years for any of them to wear out enough to justify purchasing any additional ones.
Lots of fabric for sale at the Market. I didn't buy any...but may go to the fabric market in Guanghzou. It's also quite amazing...

Many of the booths are exactly this big. The market opens around 8, and closes at 6. It's in an enormous building with no air conditioning, and very little air movement. The temperature the last week in Vietnam has been around 33-35 degrees celcius. I'm not interested to find out what that is in Degrees F, but I know it is incredibly HOT. Add to that amazingly thick humidity, and it makes sitting in a booth this tight surrounded by heavy lengths of velvet not all that enticing... regardless of how beautiful the materials are...

Today I flew from Ho Chi Minh to Guangzhou. Arrived to the hotel around 4:30, and set on my mission to find a shop to frame the painting I bought in Vietnam. No success, but I'll ask the hotel people for a reccomendation. I did come across a couple of other great finds though on my walk around the area.

The first was this ice cream treat I had 6 years ago...which I found at the 7-11. When we landed, the airplane announcements said the local temperature was 32 degrees. Again, don't know what that is in Farenhiet, but I know it's HOT. So this ice cream treat- it's a bar, and it's white, it has a "shell" of one sort of ice cream, then the top third or so is liquid and sweet and tastes sort of what I would imagine a cold melted version of a white Rabbit candy (milk candy) would taste like, then the bottom two thirds is this incredibly creamy ice cream sort of stuff with sweet red beans mixed in. The whole thing tastes an awful lot like heavy cream & sugar on a stick, and what, in 32 degree weather, is not to love about that?

The second was a trip to one of my favorite restaurants near my hotel, so I went there for dinner. I have a stand-by favorite dish. It's eggplant, called "Hong Shao Qiezi". SO yummy. So I ordered that, and a chicken dish that I pointed to a photo of and said "yeah, one of those too". (okay, at least I said that part in Chinese.) So the Chicken dish came first, and I always order rice, but it's common to bring rice at the end of the meal. I prefer it at the beginning, because I LOVE the taste of my rice when it's soaked up all the wonderful sauces from the various dishes. So the chicken dish came & I waited a few minutes....no rice...so I thought, I'll just taste it... So out come the chopsticks & I took a little piece of chicken....wow....first Mangosteen and now this! It was unbelieveable. I tried to pick out the flavors...chicken, spring onions, garlic, ginger, sichuan peppercorns, sugar, soy, and I have no idea what else because it tasted like honey to me! I felt like a little kid with a pixie stick, I could not get enough! It was hot, a little spicy, and the bottle of Qingdao beer went a little quicker than I expected! I was entering a food coma....
I was using the spoon to scoop it into my bowl and my chopsticks to eat with, but what I really wanted to do was the pick up the plate & lick it like a little kid with a cake batter bowl.... I was in heaven. Hong Shao Qiezi, move over....GONG BA JI DING is moving into first place! I have a feeling I'll be eating this a few more times in the next week and a half...

I walked, ever so slowly, back to my hotel. As I got onto the elevator, 2 other gentlemen got on. I put my head against the side of the elevator, and one said to me, "tired?" I made a motion like "big stomach" and said, "ate so much, food coma..." and the one guy said something in spanish, my spanish has essentially left the building, but I caught the drift when the other guy corrected him and said, "no no, come something something este something something" and I could tell he was saying "ate too much." I think the guy thought I was saying I was tired because I was pregnant!!! Okay, Yeah, you get a little worn out emotionally when you are 15 months paper pregnant, but today's state of fatigue was purely physical and due entirely to an overabundance of amazing food...