Late Night Snacks, Beijing-style

When we were in Beijing a few weeks ago we had an opportunity to walk through one of the night markets near our hotel, about 10 minutes walk from Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. There were about 40 food vendors lined up.

Many of them had the same basic fare to offer: some fruit (although they serve it covered in this clear jelly goop that looks so disgusting I could never bring myself to actually buy it), dumplings, a plate of noodles, some steamed buns. I couldn't resist a plate of fried dumplings, even though we had eaten earlier. As we walked on through the stalls, though,  

it definitely got easier to resist. And harder to hold back what I had just eaten... 

Interestingly, I did not see anyone buying from these meticulously ordered displays. The one thing that I did observe someone buy was the scorpions on a stick. I missed getting a picture of that though: For about 1$ US you could buy a stick with 3 or 4 1-inch scorpions on it but the picture wouldn't really have done it justice anyway because in most cases the scorpions were still moving while skewered on the stick, before being plunged into the deep fryer. I saw a couple of what looked to be American college kids daring each other to buy them. I found myself staring as a gutsy girl engaged in her own private Fear Factor episode (although they'd probably still be alive on the real FF). "Crunchy," she said. "Bitter", she said, without so much as a gag! We moved on just as she was daring her male companions to rise to the challenge.

Walking through I couldn't help but wonder: what is the order of this food chain? Does someone go out and look under rocks and in tidal pools to harvest their inventory? Do they have to clean them like vegetables pulled from the earth before they lay them out? Are they farm raised? I can't even begin to imagine how it works. Or what it might be like to eat a deep-fried silkworm pupa. According to Born Survivor: Bear Grylls bugs ARE a great source of protein. Hungry, anyone?

And just for fun, here are some of the other interesting foods seen around Shanghai in our daily travels:

And on the lighter side, a choice for dessert perhaps:

You might notice that they are labeled as an American product. Has anyone seen them on the shelves at Kroger or Meijer lately?

Our Latest Toy

This...

is our new best friend. No, I have not taken up tennis suddenly as a way to shed that last 10 pounds of baby weight (that training for and running 3 half marathons in 18 months has not helped me to shake-how sad is that?? As I have said before: I can find chocolate cookies ANYWHERE in the world; TimTams have conquered the globe!) No, the Bjorn Borg fanship remains solely the territory of my sister Sharon. (Sending you love and hugs in your recovery my dear sister!)

This is an

a handheld, rechargeable electronic bug zapper.

It is mosquito season everywhere in the northern hemisphere, I think. After going from cold directly to hot, the weather here has settled down a bit and is now quite mild, even pleasant, most days. A few of our windows have retractable screens, which is nice, so we were able to enjoy the breezes and the fresh air for a while. It didn't take long however for the mosquitoes to decide that inside our house was the place to be. And they were showing up in droves. Vivi looked like a little leper, she had so many bites. We didn't get a decent night's sleep for about a week, they kept waking us up. Enter the bug zapper: Skeeters, say hello to my little friend! As a kid growing up I was always kind of creeped out by those purple bug lights but now I am of the mind that there is no more satisfying sound than that ZAP! of a mosquito defeated! No more chasing the little 6@$+@rds around the room, trying to clap them between your hands, only to miss and have them fly away in triumph. Simply wave the "EMT" in their vicinity and you are likely to catch them. Pop! And Heavens above, I do not know how we would have survived without this. At first we thought it must be holes in the screens. We couldn't see any but moving parts are always an opportunity for failure: they must be climbing in along the tracks or something, we thought. Then the heat returned and we had a day over 90 degrees with about 90% humidity. (We've started Plum Rain season but more on that later.) So we closed the windows and finally turned on the AC. And I swear, the next 2 nights were the worst of all. We've decided that there must be an air intake somewhere that doesn't have a necessary screen on it or something because it is as if we have a window wide open somewhere and they are just pouring in! Within the space of about an hour one evening we killed about 20 with our little friend. I am the Mosquito Hunter! Around dinner time we "sweep the perimeter". That lasts until about bedtime and then I sweep the bedrooms before I put the kids to bed and close their door. I also found some of those Raid diffusers where you insert the repellent soaked pad and it diffuses repellent into the air but I think it took a day or two for the repellent to saturate the rooms adequately because even with those in place there was always at least one or two-or 12 that would wake you up at night. One night Heinz and I laughed that we were going to have to sleep in shifts to protect each other because we had already killed about 8 but no matter how much we tried to hunt them all down, once we turned off the light and dropped off to sleep another one came buzzing along.

I truly think this could be the greatest invention ever. If it wasn't for the voltage conversion issues (and probably some anti-electronics import regulations), I would bring a suitcaseful home to my family and friends when we head Stateside next month. It must emit a sound because every time we press the activator Barney looks up, twitches his ears and he does that cute little head twist. It bothering him would be the only thing that might make me hesitate to use it but thankfully he doesn't seem to care. After that initial response he simply puts his head back down and goes back to sleep. My Mandarin instructor also has a maid service in which she teaches her Ayis a high level of English to work for Western families. She said one of them asked her what the English name was for this little beauty. She was surprised that we haven't got a word (other than "bug zapper"?) for it and so am I! Where have they been all my life? When we move home I will happily buy a converter specially for my little baby so that I can use it through the Indiana summer!

Wishing you all Mosquito free days~