to market, to market

so on our first morning in Lijiang we started with this view at breakfast-

we headed off after breakfast to the Bank of China ATM to get some Chinese currency and then crossed the street into the maze of the market.  going to local markets is one of our favorite things to do when traveling. there is always something different, something we don't have at home or a variety of "food" we are not familiar with at home...

we started in the fruits section and Anna picked out a giant giant peach that she bought for us to have at lunch (this is a photo of Anna holding the peach- she wore a traditional Naxi outfit for married women- more on that later)

this variety of peach is not particularly fuzzy- mostly smooth - and was roughly the size of a good sized apple.

more tropical fruit from other parts of China and Asia was also available, but as Anna noted- was expensive by comparison to more local items - but readily available because (harken back to the map posted earlier) of their proximity to Vietnam and Myanmar

we of course never see bananas this ripe on the still fresh cut stem (look at it- it isn't even brown much less dried up) FRESH ripe bananas a novel concept for those of us whose bananas are picked green and ripened chemically

then we were in the pickled section- where there were also dried grains and beans for sale- and a variety of mushrooms...

and no I don't know what the clear-ish white-ish round things are in the center- LOL

fish is fresh- and "do it yourself"

a meat and poultry vendor-  had the chicken feet available (front and center) like those we ate in Guangzhou if you wanted more (no thank you)

 

 

 at this shop you could get your meat "smoked" LOL-

 

then on to some produce and salad-y things

then we headed into the butcher area - Anna told us many of the local butchers in Lijiang are Naxi women-

in Asia nose to tail use of "parts" is a necessity as well as a long tradition...

ducks prepared and live for those who only buy fresh-

soup bones on offer- along with some things westerners don't really want to know about (theory is one thing- reality another)

I will continue in a further post as we have gotten quite full of "bits" due to so many photos!