New York's China Town is ever expanding. Little Italy has been reduced to just one street as Chinese shops, markets, restaurants, banks, and homes gobble up the rest of its real estate. But its rapid growth, doesn't seem to ease its busyness, its chaotic movements, its endless noise, and the vast quantities of people filling its streets. The only time I've passed through China Town and it's been empty was at 7.30am on a Saturday when I was out running down an eerily deserted Canal street.
B has finally finished his exams, so we've regained our weekends. This means we can resume spending our Saturdays exploring this crazy city we not-so-recently moved to, but still really don't know nearly as well as we knew London by the time we left, despite our best efforts. I get stopped and asked for directions in the street a lot: I'm really not the right person to be asking. I'm about as clueless as every tourist glued to their over-sized map wearing their I HEART NY tops.
Anyway, enough rambling. What I'm trying to say is today we went to explore China Town. It was as crazy as we had guessed it might be on a Saturday afternoon. We weaved in and out of the locals, the bikes, the cars, the delivery trucks, as we dived in and out of food shops, gazed at the ducks hanging in restaurant windows, tried to pluck up the courage to get closer to that bucket full of frogs (I'm terrified of anything slimy, frogs included, so getting that photo took quite a lot of courage), and bought more steamed buns from the Golden Steamer than we will possibly be able to eat over the next few days.
Next time I'll go back with a hungrier stomach, a bolder spring in my step, and maybe some improved Chinese-speaking skills (mine have all disappeared), so I can actually ask questions, find out what most of those ingredients are, and try to understand what on earth I'm meant to do with them.
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