Snakes and scorpions and dried worms, Oh my! (Sunday, November 25, 2012)

We went to check out a new market for Ryan today- the Chinese medicinal street.  Very intersting for a Pharmacist.  Our guide was very informative and told us what Chinese doctors would recommend for any ailment. 

Our guide Helen was kind enough to take a family photo of us.  Most of the people we walked past looked at us twice... not many foreigners on these streets.  Actually, I don't think we saw any.  Rylie has her bear riding in the stroller.  He goes everywhere with us.

Many stores had snake skins available for purchase.  Helen said the Chinese people will buy these to use in a soup to treat various sicknesses.  She also showed us dried worms that are very expensive.  She said they are used to treat cancer.

This was the scariest part of the day- live scorpions and snakes for sale.  These were actually sold for food along with the turtles.  Some of the scorpions were walking around on the ground and the girl selling them had to pick them up and throw them back in. 

More dried snakes

This is Julie relieved that we made it past the medicine shops and to the pedestrian street.

A very Chinese-looking back alley

This guy was trying to sell something.  His horn was very loud.

Ryan walking and talking with our very informative sweet guide Helen.  She has an eight year old son- same age as Nick- so we have a lot in common.  She mentioned that Chinese people want to have more children but cannot because of one-child policy.  They love children but know it is very expensive to even have just one child.

This is a very nice pedestrian shopping street.  It was early Sunday so it was not crowded yet.  Helen said it would get much much more crowded by the afternoon.

On the way back to our hotel, we walked through the pet market.  There were dogs, cats, bunnies, birds, and fish all for sale.  The puppies were very cute of course and Rylie really liked them.  She really liked the cats, too. 

We have a great playroom in our hotel so we spent some time there in the afternoon.  We also went to the Italian Resturant down the street for dinner.  It was a strange experience.  There was only one other couple in the restaurant and the waitresses stood and stared at us the entire time.  Also, they kept asking us if we still wanted the chicken wings because apparently they had them then they didn't then they did again.  We really had no idea what they were saying but when they would say "it's okay?"  we would just nod our heads.  We did get the chicken wings and Rylie loved them.  Ryan had the spaghetti carbonara which was pretty good.  Julie had the mushroom lasagna which was very good.  Rylie ate mostly bread and a few of our noodles and lots of the chicken.