來香港買海味

"Can we buy dried oysters?" the man asked eagerly. For a dude who didn't grow up eating Cantonese or much Chinese food, he really loves dried oysters (蠔豉) in soups and rice and chap chye. My first reaction was like, "Okay! I also want dried squid and waxed duck!" Since we wouldn't be buying that much, I figured we would just pop in to Sheung Wan instead of going out to the islands or Sai Kung.

Then I was like, 'OMG. What have we become?' 🤦🏻‍♀️ We travel out of town to buy groceries. Well done, impie. Hahahah. I already have lupcheong and yuncheong. Why not buy more stuff?! We do have luggage space. The dried seafood would be nicely sealed in vacuum packs. There's a nice big fridge in the hotel room that could store all these purchases till the flight home.

Our morning was packed. But we were free from noon. Off shopping we went! Stocked up on all the dried stuff—Oysters, mushooms, and such. Got a few pieces of waxed duck breast. Wheeeee. Hadn't had that for more than a year. Damn, those aged tangerine peels from Xinhui, Guangdong (廣東新會陳皮) are really expensive. Skipped the dried scallops. Those scallops aren't very much cheaper than what I can find in Singapore, and importantly, the quality isn't higher. Why waste luggage space.

We had no lunch plans for the afternoon; figured that we'd simply pop into any random eatery that looked decent. We strolled out from Central, meandered through Sheung Wan all the way up to Tai Ping Shan Street because I wanted to visit Mount Zero bookshop (見山書店). Then we rounded over sideways to Sai Ying Pun. At these temperatures on a cloudy day, it was a nice long stroll through the neighborhoods. And this afternoon, I felt the loss of the camera keenly till the ache is almost piercing. I missed having a Leica on hand to shoot.