Crazy Chinese Food

If you've ever lived with me, you'll have noticed how much snack food I eat. This picture should illustrate how it follows from that fact that Chinese supermarkets are awesome:



I went with Alex's girlfriend to get food for lunch, and we came back with a healthy supply of snacks. Top left are large, tasty cookies; bottom left are tiny, tasty cookies. Continuing to the right: the next item is some kind of crispy thing coated in sugar; then a filled pastry of some kind; sesame balls; crunchy bread stick things; and the remains of a greasy but tasty pastry concoction.

The fish in the corner was lunch!

Speaking of fish, no-one in China knows how to fillet a fish; no-one at the supermarkets, at any rate. The problem is that fish in most Chinese food is simply chopped the way you chop tomatoes, with no regard for where the bones are; the one time I had someone with me who spoke fluent Chinese when I was getting fish, the request first confused the fish butcher, then amused me as I watched him trying to accomplish the fact. I can do only slightly better; I can never get all the bones out, and it takes forever. I've resigned myself to picking bones out of whatever I eat, since that's what everyone else does anyway.