Sunday market photos....

Another Sunday filled with running a few errands and strolling through the market taking photos...

Overall we had an incredibly relaxing weekend which was much needed after what seems like two very hectic months. Not a lot more to say, so enjoy some photos -
Recycling at it's finest - notice the office chair?
Cleaning the market during the lunchtime slow down/nap time.

Oh, and this time at the market we saw something that we've never seen. This is why we go almost every week with our cameras....
Do you see that? The man with the computer bag over his shoulder? Not only had we never seen this, most of the market hadn't either based on the way people looked at him.

Unfortunately, we don't have a photo of the front of him. I had my zoom lens on, so when we saw him he was too close and Tina decided that the image burnt into her head was enough and she didn't want to document it....

When he got further away I tried to get a photo for all of you, but he never turned just quite right so the photo above is the best we could do. But I have enlarged the photo and highlighted what it was that so shocked us and others in the market. If you can't tell - those are rats. He was walking home with two dead rats that he had strung up on fishing line. Mmmm, tasty....

Never thought I would eat this....

Yesterday, I was had dinner with the Temptations and Nationwide team to celebrate the mid- autumn festival. As everyone is aware by now, Temptations is the wine bar/restaurant here in Xiamen where Mark and I live, and Nationwide is the company owned by the same team which imports and exports wine from around the world to establishments in Xiamen, Fuzhou and Shanghai.

We went to a place called Little Sheep, where it's basically a hot pot restaurant, where they had two different soups in one huge bowl. One side is extremely spicy, while the other is a more mild version. Here one selects the meats, vegetables, fish, whatever you would like, toss it in for a few minutes to cook and basically pick your food out of this pot. Mark and I have gone to Good Taste near our house on many occasions, the difference here is that I went with 20 odd Chinese, so you can bet the food they ordered wasn't going to be the same as the food Mark and I order.


After Shelley mixes the sauces together, off hot oil, raw egg, soy sauce, and a few other things that I had no clue about, we received our dip.

Before the food came out, everyone was already doing their best to get their fellow mate drunk. The gunbeis started very quickly and within one hour, we already went through 2 boxes of Tsingtao.

One table held the Temptations team and the next table had the Nationwide team. The newest employee had to go around each person on the other table and toast each person. Some were a little more enthusiastic then others.

The Temptations Team

The Nationwide Team

Next comes the various plates which consisted of lotus, string mushrooms, potatoes,lettuce, spinach duck's blood, lamb, fish balls, and of course, one plate I never thought I would eat, pig's brain. It wasn't that bad actually. The consistency was a little on the soft side, but the taste was quite good.

The pig's brain

Throughout the meal, the drinks continued with the staff becoming more boisterous as everyone cheered everyone. I think Gordon won for the most consumption of alcohol.

Later unbeknownst to me, the night was to continue at a KTV. Here we were to sing, drink some more, and play the dice game. After all, it is the mid-autumn festival.

Well as usual, the dice game is always a big favorite, especially when there are prizes to be won. The one thing that we enjoy about the dice game is that the Chinese give practical gifts. People won woks, toasters, detergent, toothbrushes, etc. I won a steamer, which is good since we don't have an iron, Kleenex, and shampoo.

Some of the prizes

Afterwards, singing and drinking ensued.

The two chef's from Temptations,Hong (also owner) and Icen

Allen (one of the owner's)

Temptations staff, Ice, Hong, and the newest member, Martin

Meanwhile, Gordon, who was the rock star earlier in the night, quickly found a nice corner to sleep.


The Chinese do love to party!

Mystery Fruit?

Ah, yes that lovable stinky fruit that we talk about yesterday. We figured that some of you would know what it was, and that maybe some of you might hazard a guess.

Well, I would think that letting you know it was a Malaysian fruit that stinks would have been enough for anyone with an internet. In fact typing in just that "Malaysian stinky fruit" returns a list of sites that tell you exactly what it was we ate.

Apparently the smell is so bad that it is banned in a lot of places throughout most of Asia. However, here in China, it's out in the open and they cut it apart right in the supermarket. Once I knew what the smell was I was alright with buying the meat in the supermarket, but before that I just presumed that there meat was starting to rot.

To quote from that semi-credible source Wikipedia:

• Writing in 1856, the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace provides a much-quoted description ... “The five cells are silky-white within, and are filled with a mass of firm, cream-coloured pulp, containing about three seeds each. This pulp is the eatable part, and its consistence and flavour are indescribable. A rich custard highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but there are occasional wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine, and other incongruous dishes. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy. It is neither acid nor sweet nor juicy; yet it wants neither of these qualities, for it is in itself perfect. It produces no nausea or other bad effect, and the more you eat of it the less you feel inclined to stop.


• Travel and food writer Richard Sterling says “... its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia.


• ...in Singapore, the strong demand for high quality cultivars such as the D24, Sultan, and Mao Shan Wang has resulted in typical retail prices of between S$8 to S$15 (US$5 to US$10) per kilogram of whole fruit. With an average weight of about 1.5 kilograms (3.3 lb),..

Yep, read up on it, and if you're visiting we will try and see if we can get a sample of some durian for you to try.

Local, well sort of, delicacies.

So while we were over Temptations over the weekend, Mark and Siew ,decided to bring us another local fruit for us to try. Local being Asia, as this is a favorite of Marks that comes from Malaysia. We had seen it around, and well before you see it you can tell that the market has it by its distinctive odor.
Yes, the smell is a little off putting, but George had a solution to that problem. We had tried this before mixed into an ice cream, I wasn't impressed but Tina seemed to like it. When I later said "It tastes just like it smells" Tina responded with a simple "Oh, my nose is plugged."

Trying the real stuff wasn't that bad, at least for flavor, but as you can see from Tina's reaction her nose was working that night...