Earthquakes and Central Market experiences

With all the time I spent working on the blog yesterday I completely forgot that twenty [yes 20] years ago we experienced a few moments of shear terror during the Northridge earthquake. It was 6.7 – the biggest I ever want to be in. And we lived in Northridge just a few miles from the epicenter. What a mess. The only dishes left were the ones in the dishwasher – everything from the cupboards was on the floor in pieces. None of us in the house were hurt – just All Shook Up. Life in the area was a mess for a few months. It took help from FEMA and Insurance (80,000 dollars worth) to repair the house. Thank goodness some of our kids were in the construction business.

Don’t know if I mentioned it or not but our cracked windshield on the Alfa is fixed. And hopefully it will hold. Can’t even see the crack anymore.

Yesterday between writing the blogs we went to Centro. Picked up Bill’s watch – now running perfect. And while in the parking lot Willie got a good wash. He was pretty dusty from the roads the day before. We walked up towards the Central Market and on the way passed an open to the street candy store.

They were just making the sugar coated nuts. The sugar was in the pan already caramelized – and it smelled so good.

Some nuts had already been coated.

Did we buy any? Of course and they were still warm. I think Bill ate half of them last night while reading.

Then on to the Parisina again – yardage store – Bill still looking for ties for his shirts. This is a batik material – very nice US$2.30 a yard

And lots of material now getting ready for Carnaval costumes. A Tule with sequins.

Across the street is the Central Market. The upstairs of this side is mostly little restaurants.

I never noticed these pictures in side the market before – they are up on the second floor. They’re of some of the sculptures along the Malecón here in town.

Just a shot down one of the aisles in the market. You can get just about anything in this huge building.

One of the many meat markets. Cut to your order.

This place has cooked food. These are candied sweet potatoes. They really smell good.

Cooked/candied platanos.

Lots of different produce stands. We bought green grapes and avocados. But notice the architecture of the place.

Coconut – another thing I need to try someday. I wonder if the yellow tastes different than the red? 

El Mercado Pino Suarez is an old building built over 100 years ago and it is starting to show its age. So the city is starting to talk about rebuilding it. Not repairing it – rebuilding it with underground parking and everything. As it stands it takes up an entire square block right in the middle of downtown. Can you imagine the mess both physical and economical if this is done? Bill was talking to one of the owners of one of the small stores in the market. If the whole market building is torn down – everyone inside it will be out of a place to work. All the stores around it will suffer with the construction. To build underground parking will be an interesting project as the water table is very high under that part of the city. Plans are for the project to take one to one and a half years.

I wonder what will finally end up happening. Sure hope they do something less destructive.

During the course of Bill’s conversation with the shop owner talk turned to the tourists. Bill asked him if there are many tourists in the summer. The answer was a resounding Yes. The Mexican families from inland come to the ocean. Lots of them. Then he remarked he likes the Mexican tourists because they know the value of what he sells. They don’t think the hand embroidered blouses from Oaxaca are machine made from China. They know better unlike the gringos. Then he related an experience that just made me shudder….The gringo asked the price of an item. 300Pesos was the price quoted about 23 dollars US. The gringo then said “I’ll give you 5 dollars in REAL money for it.” They got to keep their REAL money. Don’t know if this gringo was from the US or Canada but sure hope they stay home from now on. Well off my soap box.

I’ve noticed that some of the trash cans in Centro have been painted – this is one of them.

From there we went to the Plazuela Machado for lunch. Tried a new restaurant – to us. The Tramoya – very good food. I had a salad consisting entirely of citrus fruit with lettuce and honey mustard dressing.

Stopped at Mega for groceries. The grocery store is on the second floor of the building. With moving stairs/sidewalks/ramps going up and down. It fascinates me the way the grocery carts are locked onto the moving ramp. When a lot of them end up in the parking area. They are pushed together and sent up the ramp by themselves. 

Then home to work on yesterdays blog(s). I am getting behind in blogging - not getting it done in the morning but will try to finish one each day and post it sometime during the day or evening. 

Really cooling down in the evenings now. And only in the low 80s during the day. Much nicer. 

And today – Saturday – we met Paquis and her group again and spent another interesting day with them. Tomorrow’s blog.