The Wet Market

The other morning Joanne (the lady we are staying with) took me to the Wet Market. What a busy, Crazy place. It is similar to a farmers market at home. With fish, beef, chicken mongers thrown in. I think you might be able to buy what ever you want there. They have a lot of different stands selling all kinds of fruits and vegetables. Most of with I have never seen before. So many crazy fruits that I have never even hear of. My favorite so far is called a mangostein. It is purple on the outside and on the inside it has a bunch of, well, I don't know but it seriously looks like garlic. Like six cloves all turned together in the middle. It's juice from the purple outside is used to stain cloth, and if you get it on your clothes it never comes out. The inside is soft and very sweet, and it doesn't taste anything like mangos. I have discovered that I am allergic to dragonfuit. They also have two fruits here called Jack fruit and Durian fruit, both are extremely smelly. Almost like B.O. I haven't have the opportunity to taste either one, but I have heard they are both very delicious, once you get past the smell. :)
I was very taken back by the fact that you can come to the Wet Market and pick a live chicken from a crate, they slaughter, de feather, and cut it up right in front of you. GROSS! I can't even imagine, I like going to the grocery store and picking out a package of chicken and being very unaware that until recently it had a head. It was very, very smelly too. They have all these people standing around with cleavers ready to serve you.












Another thing that has really been weird for me it that they do not refrigerate their eggs. Even in the grocery store they just sit out on a shelf, by the bread. You take them home and put them in the fridge. It is so hot here, I just don't want to think about it. I can say though that my egg consumption has seriously decreased. I tell you what too, we have not idea what Soy Sauce is suppose to taste like either. I am not sure what I am going to do when the stash I am bringing home runs out. It is soooo good here. They have a truck at the Wet Market where you can make your own Soy Sauce to your own taste. What ever your own special recipe is. So cool!












The beef hangs from hooks and the fish are still flipping around, but they are so happy to cut you what ever you desire. I think I walked around with my mouth hanging open the entire time. The apples come from the US and are expensive. Its extremely hard to find strawberries and grapes that you don't have to pay an arm and a leg for. I have yet to even see a peach or nectarines.



Here something else, at the grocery store, well the mall even, you can not get plastic bags Monday through Thursday. You have to bring your own. So everyone waits to do their shopping until the weekend and boy, is the supermarket and mall busy. Its hard to find a trolley (shopping cart) those days. I think I have mentioned as well that the grocery store is in the bottom of the mall. So you take your trolley out into the parking garage to load up your car. If there are no trolleys in the store it is because the men who are paid to collect them are on break. :)

I am so enjoying these experiences so much and giggle a little in my head when I learn about these crazy things!