back to Guiyang's market n.2

Back to my favorite town market, simply called Market n.2. Except I can't really go "back" to it, because since the last time I was here last September they moved it! Even my wife does not know where it is so we need mother-in-law's guidance to lead us there, though it is only a few hundred meters away. But it is inside a large building complex, it takes a whole block and it would not be easy to find.

The new market is much better than the old one, for one thing, it is a proper building with a tiled floor and a rainproof roof, unlike the messy jumble of stands on mud floor like the old one. The old one was more fun to watch though!

Shops for live animals are clustered together, along the same street. On one side of the market they sell fish (alive from styrofoam boxes, as usual here) and on the opposite side of the block, it is poultry, also alive.

I buy some pig ears. I like the texture of the cartilage and enveloping skin, especially as my mother-in-law cooks it with her signature home make chili-garlic-ginger spicy sauce.

In the afternoon it is massage and herbal bath time. My wife and I take our two friends who are visiting from Italy to try the Chinese technique. One hour is filled with three sessions of massage, body, legs, and arms, alternating with sessions in a wooden tub for a hot bath of herbal infusions. The massage takes place in a warm room with gentle music in the background. Single or double rooms depending on clients’ needs.

For our two friends, they only had two single rooms and only one of the rooms had a shower. The masseuses did not speak any English, so with the help of a phone translator my lady friend's masseuse, at the end of the session, wanted to tell her if she wanted to rinse in her husband's shower. Except she said: "I want to take a shower with your husband!" Haha.

Supermarket and TV series

I am pleased to see Italian durum wheat pasta of an unknown (to me) brand called "Sicilia" in the supermarket but no other Italian products. Not many foreign products at all actually. There used to be a few last year. In fact, there was a whole stack of shelves with pasta, olive oil, vinegar, and also lots of wines.

Every time I come here I get a kick out of seeing the live fish in the aquarium waiting to be hauled out with a net and knocked dead with a wooden stick before being weighed by the fishmonger. Weighed but not cleaned as the Chinese like to eat the skin as well as the guts of the fish, which by the way are delicious, silly of us to throw it all away.

Ground floor kids space all kinds of games and entertainment. You buy a card and top it up, then tap every time you play a game until you run out of credit. Our niece Cindy is very fond of this and whenever we are here she can't wait to drag us to the games.

An evening watching TV at home. There is a singing contest on CCTV (China state TV) with many Taiwanese singers. I suppose that is a good way to improve relations across the Taiwan straits.

Later on, there is one of many war series with Chinese soldiers killing many Japanese during the war of the 1930s. The subject touches raw nerves in China even eighty years later. Many Chinese soldiers are very pretty and immaculately manicured girls, but no less brutal fighters!

Train to Chenzhou

Crispy fish skins

Easy morning around Mong Kok. I would like to try a snake soup again but my friends are not so enthusiastic so we opt for a traditional family restaurant of Cantonese cuisine. Fun to walk around this part of town, lots of peculiar shops, selling goldfish, cats, rabbits and all kinds of food, of course. This time I tried noodles, bovine pancreas and fish skins.

In the early afternoon we take a taxi to the sparkling new West Kowloon Terminus, the final stop of the newest fast train coming directly from the mainland. One more step toward the integration of Hong Kong with the motherland.

It is all very new and impressive. For some reason we foreigners are charged 30 Rmb to collect our tickets even though we had already book and prepaid online. Perhaps because we must show our passports to a human teller. (All tickets are nominal.) Chinese can do this at an automatic teller and for free with their electronic ID cards. Anyway, we are lucky to have seats at all. It is still the end of the CNY celebrations, lanterns day festival was yesterday and millions of Chinese are still on holiday.

Second class tickets are the equivalent of about 40 Euro each, fairly reasonable at European prices for 2 and a half hours ride on a superfast train, but quite expensive for the average Chinese. And yet the train was long fully booked. My wife was smart to catch tickets for us and our visiting friends via a special app which somehow manages to snatch tickets as they become available (one month before the trip) or when there is a cancellation.

Pass Hong Kong passport control first and enter a duty-free area, just as if we were leaving the country although Hong Kong is an integral part of China, if with a special autonomous status. I bought some whisky to share with my family in Guiyang.

Then, before we get to the PRC passport control positions, we walked over a thick yellow line on the ground and passed from the "Hong Kong area" to the "Mainland area" on the other side. Landing cards must be filled and we were at the Chinese passport control checkpoint. The officers did not smile much but are polite and very fast to let us all through.

The ride is quite smooth. We arrive in Chenzhou and it's dark and very cold. We have to get off fast as the train stops only for very few minutes before resuming its run to Wuhan.

Taxis are readily available, 100 Rmb to Chenzhou. We tried Didi, the company that bought Uber out in China, but could not get one. We don't trust some illegal taxi drivers who approach us and offer a discount.

Pile up our suitcases in the truck at the back of the taxi but they do not fit, so the driver just leaves the lid open and ties everything together with some strong belt he always carries with him.