More food-on-a-stick

I think the picture says it all, but I'll explain just to be sure. That picture isn't my doing, I stole it off another website. Trust me, if you had seen what I saw you would never read this blog again.

I love most everything in Chengdu that comes in kabob form. I ate lamb-on-a-stick and cantaloupe-on-a-stick for dinner tonight. For dessert I ate pineapple-on-a-stick. Everything on a stick is good! At least, that's what I used to think...

Yes, Gentle Reader, you can see from the picture above just how wrong I was on this matter. Yesterday I was taken to a food bazaar that was set up in celebration of Chinese New Year. There were booths selling every kind of food in China: Hong Kong style Chinese food, Sichuan style, Beijing style, and everything in between. There was lamb-on-a-stick, ostrich-on-a-stick, fish-on-a-stick, and even camel-on-a-stick. My friend and I didn't buy anything on our first trek around the bazaar. We just wanted to see what everyone was selling, so we could come back and buy what looked best. The food stalls were situated end to end down a long and narrow alleyway. The place was packed with locals and tourists alike, all trying to sample something exotic. As we neared the end of the alley, we suddenly noticed that one booth had attracted an unusually large group of onlookers. I pushed my way to the front of the crowd to see what was being sold. There on the table lay rows and rows of bugs-on-a-stick. The ones that you see above were there, as well as a number of bugs I didn't recognize. The worst offenders were the scorpion-on-a-stick. I watched as customers bought these, and then bit into their crunchy exoskeleton.

Situated between the scorpions and some beetles-on-a-stick sat something I thought I'd never see on a food table. Tarantulas. Big, fried, crispy-looking tarantulas.