Spices

Yesterday, I went for a walk. The walk was meant to be as far upstream the Rhone as possible, but strong winds blew me inland. There was said to be a Chinatown a little in from this part of the Rhone, so I went looking for it.

In the process, I found a big street with pretty buildings on one side, and a chain link fence on top of a stone wall on the other. There was grafiti and there were nice looking boulingeries (bakeries). This was beside a university, so there were also a bunch of bars. And I withdrew money from an ATM opposite a strip club (but then kept walking down the street.)

On a whim, I turned down a one-lane side street, up another, and found a street that dead-ended into stairs leading up, way up ahead. Fittingly, the restaurant that greeted me as I turned onto it was Texas Taco Sandwich, with bright red shuttered windows. Then, some guy passed me, and it took me a second to realize that the reason I noticed, was that he was Chinese. And then there was a little red sign in Chinese characters, up near the stairs! There were also Japanese places, and Thai ones, all mixed up. And one more completely out of place Tex-mex sort of thing that would have served greasy fast food in the States. Who knows how it got here . . .

It took me two closed grocery stores before I found an open one. The spices there were so cheap! There were all sorts of them, in labeled little plastic packages. And there was even a pile of unlabeled melon-sized plastic bags. They had yellow powder inside, so presumable it was curry. Although, the masala powder I got is yellow, too. So: mystery spice. Roughly 1 kilo for 4 Euros. And the coconut milk. I bought a big box for the same price my grocery store charges for a box 1/10th its size!

There is a large bottle of soy sauce sitting on my desk. It was bought in Paris, and taken down to Lyon, before I knew where to find it here. Now, I'll no longer have to import my Asian foods.

Feeling very pleased with myself, I wandered up the stairs. This street was really on a lower level than the streets around it. At the intersection in front of the stairs, there was a staircase leading up on the street to my left, there was the one in front of me, and there may have been one to my right, as well.

When I got up, I saw a tall, curved glass building, parted down the middle, standing on a big plaza. You could see a street through the gap, as if the building were a gateway onto another neighborhood. People were gathered in the plaza, spilling out through the gate. I went to take a look, to see why they were there, and realized that they were absolutely all men. Most were older, and I think, Middle-Eastern. They stared at me, and I stared back. Around me, guys were running into old friends, shaking hands, chatting. I must have bumped into a neighborhood square, or something.

Deciding that I wasn't a man, and thus, stood out a bit, I turned back.

I returned home quite triumphantly with my loot, spices, coconut milk, udon noodles and all. Now I need to look up what goes into masala. It's exciting.