During the day it rained, albeit not very long. Which meant trying to find an umbrella. Something I haven't needed in months. Autumn is upon us. Of course in East Asia they're having another typhoon (Toraji), which is their version of Fall weather.
Here, we have sweaters.
At the lunchtime restaurant, two tourist shared a bowl of wonton noodle soup, and tipped like misers. Or like many Chinatown old-timers who complain about the taste of food nowadays, and the prices, and are accustomed to being horrid tippers damn the fact that staff can't live on scraps and tuppence!
The staff there are really hard working, and friendly. Which is probably why they're packed every day, and I don't see many of the sour old local cretins who bellyache about everything. Don't see many outsiders either.
What probably scares away most of the tourists is spaghetti.
HK Chinese also like macaroni, by the way.
And club sandwiches.
Often I have the club sandwich, but today I went for the baked garlic goo sole (蒜蓉焗龍脷 'suen yong guk lung lei') with rice, and broccoli. Cup of milk tea, bowl of soup. Ate and drank leisurely, left and lit my pipe. By that time the rain had stopped. Did errands and grocery shopped. The lady where I bought my lottery ticket at this point knows that I speak Cantonese and treats me like a fellow resident of the neighborhood.
With a slight edge of anomaly.
Nothing quite heralds the coming of cold better than the deep orange hue of persimmons, which I've rarely enjoyed because there's just something about them. But they are beautiful. So I couldn't resist buying a few, two of which I gave to the Indonesian Chinese woman downstairs along with a bag of yauchoi.
The brined quail eggs (滷水鵪鶉蛋 'lou seui am chuen daan') which I bought on a whim are staying upstairs, however. An elegant snack, or addition to a bowl of noodles.
So beautiful, so beautiful.
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