Friday, February 23, 2007

Street food vendors and some videos






I walked 2 blocks to a local shopping mart. It's called "E-mart" and kinda like Wal-mart. The major differences are that "Wal" is replaced with an "E" and the vests are yellow instead of blue. An older gentleman didn't pass me a shopping a cart either. In retrospect, there really are a few differences in the 2 marts.

It has very limited western food selection but has everything else. Blow dryers, laundry hampers, TVs, chinese food, Disney dinnerware, and hammers. Aimee is there right now exploring it for herself. Along the way, I found the new Papa John's pizza. It has a nice sit down area. I venture that we'll venture there sometime soon as a family.

The day I checked out "E-mart", I skipped lunch at home. As I walked out of E-mart, I saw the typical street food vendors. One guy had a "trough" with hot charcoal briquets. In addition to his makeshift grill, he had a large table with lots of grilling options: "meats", corn on the cob, other vegetables, and hotdogs (they don't really qualify as meat, do they?). I passed on his monglian barbeque and headed over to an older woman's stand. She had a push cart with a 15inch diameter can on top. The lid on this can was a hunk of metal and it was hot. She poured a batter type liquid and spread with a spatula. She threw on a raw egg, a variety of seasonings (including green leaves, some red spicy stuff, along with other accesories). It cooked for 90 seconds and then she began to scrape up the thin crust. She began to fold it, adding large fluffy crunchy tortilla chunks as she folded it up. She sealed it together with some brown paste. I should note that she didn't add any of the stuff without checking with me first. But, "when in China, do as the Chinese do", right? I believe my biggest asset is my lack of smell. I'll eat just about anything here.

My jumbo, poor man's chalupa cost me 2 yuan. There are roughly 8 yuan per US Dollar. She refused to keep the change from my 5 yuan bill, despite my offer. After all the work she put in to cooking it, I felt like I was stealing it for 2 yuan. This woman was the first that I've met that spoke less english than I speak chinese. She seemed pleasantly surprised and eager to serve me her specialty.

It's impressive to me how these vendors take their show "on the road". While walking with Anna recently, we had to dodge a bicycle equipped with a charcoal "trough" hanging off the backend. The guy had integrated the gutter-sized trough into his bicycle frame. It was a mobile restaurant.

The big news here is Chinese New Year. It means fireworks and firecrackers off and on all week.

Here's a video that we took on the first night. This was 5 minutes away from our house. The booming continued throughout the night that day. It was mainly just a few hours each evening for the remainder of the week. Although, it is Friday and Sat/Sun are not here yet.

http://my.videoegg.com/video/czVOuC

For those of you that enjoy our kid videos, here are couple of Elijah:

1. The future grunge band rocker, http://my.videoegg.com/video/czVOIX
2. When he's not rocking, his favorite hobby, http://my.videoegg.com/video/cvyRIP


Pic 1 - a street corner near the Bai Bai Ban shopping district. He's got a spinning, rotisserie-style kettle over a flame. I did not get to see what he was cooking. If you click on the picture, it will enlarge. You can then get a better look at the vendor beyond him that's baking potatos over a barrel.
Pic 2 - our lunch options at BK in the Super Brand Mall.
Pics 3 & 4 - Anna and Elijah meeting Buzz and Geoffrey at Toys R Us in the SBM
Pic 5 - SBM with Pearl Tower in the background.




Over and out.

3 comments:

missy said...

Thanks for showing us more of life in China - you seem to quite brave in what you will try.

Thanks for being so faithful in writing the blog. I check it daily to see if there is any news from the Bowmans :)

Take care!

Anonymous said...

hey, this is collette hansen,you don't know me but i go to grace church and i saw your blog on the prayer sheet. It's awesome you are over there spreading the good news! Anyways i'm actually going to china on spring break with my friend, i was wondering if there was someway i could see what you guys are doing, because i would love to be a missionary there someday. Or if you wanted me to bring something over. But email me back if i can help in any way. collette_hansen@hotmail.com. God bless!

Anonymous said...

Picking inbetween toes must run in the family, obviously on the Bowman side, because Isaiah does the same thing. By the way, what is the houston hitch?

Beth B.