CHINA 2010 TUESDAY 27th JULY

A late afternoon walk around the old part of the city close to our apartment as it looks as though it could rain. It’s very dark over the mountains but much brighter overhead. We ventured down a narrow street noticing that the name of it was on a green plaque rather than blue. Passing one or two rooms we wondered if we should have come down here as the young girls were obviously ‘sitting in waiting’ but I wanted to know what the building was facing up the way. It turned out to be a Temple tucked away in a maze of narrow alleys. A lot of people were inside and because of its location felt we did not want to intrude so retraced our steps back onto the main street. Getting on for 6pm the foodstalls were all ready doing business and part of the time we had to step into the road to avoid the tables and stools. The food did look good and smelt good too which made us feel hungry. We have now discovered what is in the large brown earthen jars embellished with yellow dragons stood outside some establishments – it is soup. But what about the lady I saw shining a torch down the neck of the jar whilst she stood on a stool as the jar was nearly as tall as her? “Yes”, Mander informed me “everyone would have soup and she would be checking on the level”. Another of life’s little mysteries explained to me. The shops are very varied in this area – hardware, parts of the kitchen burner or a full replacement if required, shoes, clothes, wood carvings, the expensive brown China Clay teapots, dry goods and one shop that I really wanted to photo just to explain why I had to learn how to ask for my chicken eggs. This still sold nothing but eggs including a box on the street that appeared to have been boiled, shelled and then rolled in wet light brown clay. By now it had begun to rain and was getting heavier and we had decided not to take our umbrellas so we would return home. Not before I take a few more photos of the small houses, narrow alleys, and the rows of bright red Chinese lamps outside a traditional building which I managed to read on a gold plaque stating this was the ‘Teaching place of the Daoists’.

Looking at the map at home we have covered quite an area but with so much activity I thought we hadn’t been out for so long and had in fact almost reached Zhongshan Park.