Mission Complete

In the weeks leading up to our departure Bri and I had a lot of conversations with each other about what we expected, points of anxiety and things we wanted to accomplish before Christmas.  One thing I was excited to do was purchase produce at a local market. 

Buying local produce turned out to be much easier than I expected although I still have a lot of room for improvement language wise.  This morning one of our new friends, Dani, and I walked to the local wet market about 150 yards away.  The goal was two-fold.  1. Find a good cup of coffee.  2. Buy a watermelon. 

We had been told of a good coffee shop on the corner of the market, but upon our arrival we found it to be closed.  The market was smaller than I expected but a vary convenient size to retrieve a variety of fresh produce a few times a week.  The market had just the right amount of rank odor to make you feel like you were getting the real experience.  There wasn’t a lot to share about the market but here’s the rundown.   There were veggie stands, a few fruit stands with some common and some uncommon specimens, a couple tanks of swimming fish and live crustaceans, freshly made noodles, live chickens for sale, two tofu stands with about 15 varieties each and multiple stands with butchered meat lying around on the counter.  So….nothing too interesting.

After a lap around the place to get the lay of the land I made a few purchases!  My mandarin is still nonexistent so I wasn’t able to barter but I still made it out of the place with some good produce at decent price.  I‘ll definitely be back.

 

I just bought a couple pounds of bananas for six yuan (pronounced liked why with a k in front).  I'm showing the hand signal for six that the lady signaled to me.  Six yuan is about $0.93.

On our way out of the market we saw that the coffee shop was opening (7am) so we popped in for Dani’s latte and managed to get me an americano ordered.  Of course we also purchased a couple pastries for breakfast from the coffee shop and a couple dumpling type items from the shop next door.  It turned out to be a really good morning and both goals were completed successfully.  Click here to see some more pictures and commentary about the market.  

Dani sitting at a table in the school courtyard with our coffee, a variety of chinese dumplings and a couple traditional pastries.  Bon Appetit!