Hong Kong has lots of interesting street scenes such as this restaurant owner writing the evening’s delicacies on a menu board outside his restaurant. Another common sight is little shops full of chinese crockery, where one can buy all sorts of neat chinese plates, bowls, spoons, tea pots and the like. Several years ago Maureen and I went into one of these shops in Mid Levels to buy some chinese tea cups that Mo wanted to take back to Canada. (The traditional cups that come with a cover.) Maureen made her purchases and the shopkeeper ~ a man who looked as though he was about 75 years old ~ placed all the items into a plastic bag before handing them over to us. When we got home Maureen was proudly washing her cups and preparing them for safe travels to Canada inside her suitcase. I, on the other hand, was looking inside the plastic bag with disgust at the item on the bottom of the bag. SHOCKING!

That was about three years ago, and this past weekend after running some errands in Mid Levels I was in search of Diet Lemon Coke for my evening’s Myers Rum & Coke. Lo and behold the same shopkeeper had dirt cheap Diet Lemon Coke (HK$ 5 each) outside his shop entrance. The cans of coke ~ perfectly chilled ~ were calling to me from inside a cooler. "Charles… pick me, pick me… I’ll be perfect with rum." I grabbed three cans and went inside to pay the 75 year old man.

"You want bag?" he asked me. I looked at him very skeptically but slowly nodded yes. Before placing the cans inside the bag I scanned the bottom to make sure there wasn’t another offending item in the bottom. Fortunately, the bag was clean.

Any guesses what was in the bottom of the bag three years ago?  It was truly quite disgusting. Take a guess!

Guesses so far: sorry, not porn, not a cockroach. Much worse.