Market toMarket

From Susan 10/13/08

After finding mutton offerings for every meal, I go to market. Idre’s Guest House has a kitchen for cooking. Near the train station, I see people pouring milk from tin pails for sale from the car trunk. Cooking oil is sold in a similar fashion, usually in a 20 l poly carboy. Then the stalls with produce! I hadn’t seen a vegetable for four days. Purple garlic, onions, cabbage, green and red bell peppers, huge yellow turnips, tomatoes, potatoes, small crab apples, dried herbs, I buy some of each. Bins of cranberries currents, and yellow berries repeat in each stall, I buy the currents. A full supermarket is behind the international VIP train ticketing office. I find half a frozen chicken, eggs, and salmon steaks. Toilet paper and beer round the order. Feeling lucky, I go to the butcher counter, something other than mutton must be here. I see a wooden block, full axe, and cleaver. Sides of some red meat weighing over 20 kg lie unwrapped in the open case. I don’t press my luck.

I buy our Beijing return tickets in a wood and leather salon on the second floor. The clerk wants Torog notes and will not accept a credit card. The bank is conveniently across the hall, this game has been played before. One dollar equals 1148 Torog and the better exchange rate is given for large bills. Bundled stacks of Torog notes sit on a pallet behind the teller.