So, I went to a market today, called SanYuanLi. Its located near North Sanlitun Street and is about a mile from our house. I had heard that they had a good selection on fruits, meats and cheeses as well at alot of imported goods.


Wow...what an experience. The market is set in one long warehouse with shops on both sides of a long aisle. In the front of the market is all the fruit stands, maybe 20 in all. They all seem to serve the same things, cherries, pineapples, dragonfruit, cherries, peaches, lychee, grapes, mangoes, strawberries, etc. After the fruit comes the sauce and spice stands. These have a mix of dry spices in plastic bags and sauces in jars. Strangely enough, these chinese spice shops slowly morph into a imported food emporium.


They have about a dozen shops that sell all of the same stuff, hershey's syrup, cake mix, olive oil, sardines in oil, all sorts of cereal (most likely selling at 10$ a box), hard liquor and wine. Its pretty impressive the range of goods they carry, but I don't think the purveyors of these fine mini-establishments can guarantee the freshness of these goods. Near the end of the rows of imported good, the air started to smell alittle stale, to the point of becoming putrid...I was thinking that it was the cheese in one of these places, but no, alas, it was the open air butchers that were next in the market.


They started with beef and mutton stands, then pork, followed by chicken and finally, thankfully, seafood. Most of the butchers had their wares displayed on a wooden chopping blocks or on hooks in front of their stands. Today I saw mutton spines, pigs feet, a skinned animal with frozen water bottles stuffed in it to keep it cool and a huge beef heart on a hook. As I mentioned before, the sight of all of this was incredibly fascinating, but the smell was absolutely stunning. Thankfully, the seafood counters were next (which smelled less foul), followed by some beautiful produce stands. I was very impressed with the veggies, they was a large variety and all of it looked delicious. I don't like to think about what most Asian nations use as fertilizer, but as soon as I get my stuff here, I'm going to give these a try.


All in all, I brought home 60 RMB worth of fruit (about 9 USD). The most expensive thing I bought was the grapes. Cliff requested sweet grapes in chinese (pretty good after three lessons, huh?), so I had to acquiesce. The sweetest grapes at the stand were imported (or course) from Italy. I told Cliff that he better start eating up. We also got some bananas, a mango and donut peaches and cherries from the Beijing area...I'll make sure to wash those well. I bargained with the lady and she really didn't give me too much of an discount, but she did throw in a free lime. I don't know what the heck I'll do with that.


Close-up of the fruit that will most probably help build up my immune system.


We also bought a bing (cake). This is more like an indian naan or roti with some egg and green onion. Its pretty tasty, but it wasn't fresh made, so it could have been better.


I'll try to take some better pics next time. Well, everyday is a new adventure...we'll keep you updated!