Sunday, July 20, 2008

Culture - Creamer style!

Doug had a photo shoot in Houston yesterday so we tagged along with him. He was shooting near our favorite spot, China town, so while he was working, we were playing!
We hit the HUGE grocery store there called Hong Kong Market (which is a cultural experience in it's own right!) and could have easily entertained ourselves for hours!
The kids get the biggest kick out of oriental "convenience" foods! Here is Ryan contemplating shrimp flavored crackers. And just in case you are wondering...they also carry crab and squid flavors, too!
Wandering through the produce section is an adventure! So many fruits and vegetables we've never seen or heard of! One day we're going to get adventurous and buy something we can't pronounce and eat it! It amazes me how everything is so inexpensive at this market. I got a ton of baby bok choy, fresh ginger roots, and snap peas for under five bucks. Here, one ginger root would have cost me that much! After exploring the produce, we went to the seafood counter. I believe that they carry every type of sea creature known to man! Most of it is in huge tanks and they'll catch it and kill it right there on the spot. It's a pretty smelly place, but John Paul and Daniel really loved the crab tank (their favorite show is Deadliest Catch!)

We then went to the noodle aisle and bought a pretty good selection of rice noodles, rice sticks, pancit, and ramen. Then JP thought he hit the mother lode when he found these:

...and at 2.50 for the whole bag, we couldn't pass it up! We had so much fun crunching cookies and reading fortunes. It was funny how "mysteriously" every fortune Danny would pull out said, "Be good at Mass!" Later that night, after we got home, Doug ate a cookie and Danny says, "What did your cookie say, Daddy? Be good at Mass?"
Even the grounds at Hong Kong City Mall are fun to stroll. There are pagodas, fountains, bamboo and lotus. Here are the boys are looking for koi fish (as I was yelling at them NOT to feed the fish fortune cookies!):

When Doug was done, we had a nice dinner at Kim Son and then made our way home. During the drive we were serenaded by "drum music" played with the chopsticks from our dinner! (I will not tell you how those "drum sticks" later became ninja fighting swords and I had to confiscate them before someone put an eye out!)

2 comments:

Linda said...

I've lived in this area for umpteen years and never seen that part of town! Please give us a little more detail on how to find this treasure.

JoAnnC. said...

It's at the beltway and Bellaire. Turn on the side that the Home Depot is on and the Hong Kong City Mall is a little less than a mile down on the left. TONS of retail stores, markets and restaurants.