State Fair!

On October 16th we took Penelope to the NC state fair in Raleigh. Having lived in Tallahassee and Columbus and Dallas, we've seen our share of state fairs, but wanted her to have the experience and also to experience a bit more of NC ourselves. The last state fair we saw in the US was probably in Montana, 25 years ago. Not much appears to have changed. We'll still take the feria in Seville over all the others.

In one of the big pavilions, featuring NC ag products

Tasting NC wines...absolutely the only place you could get alcohol
of any sort

Corn dog or corny dog? Depends on whether you're from Texas,
where they originated...not Korea...is anything not seen on TikTok?

Americans will deep fry anything...anything; in our very limited
experience, the deep-fried Krispy Kreme burger is the latest...

Morning supply of roast corn

In the floral area

Champion bonsai

Champion Venus fly traps--not a fly in sight; NC native, BTW

Themed gardens...Barbie?

Autumn scenes

More flowers

Smelling the roses

NC's prime ag product, once upon a...

Turkey drum sticks...all day snack...$19.95

Champion watermelon/pumpkin; Jabba the Gourd

Peppers

Major honey displays

Suckling pigs

Suckling pigs tanning, not suckling

We all know what the Norwegian Blue is, so this was a bit of a
surprise

Not much going on in the livestock arena; would be very, very
different in Montana

So back to the Midway

Stock for the deep-fried Oreos

By agreement, thrill-seeking P did not go on any
of the carny rides...

"Yeah, last season he was a pixie-dust spreader on the Tilt-O-Whirl.
He thinks that maybe next year, he’ll be guessing people’s weight or
barking for the Yak woman." (If you don't get this, you're on the wrong
blog; see here for explanation)

So at length, after examining all the Midway games, P
finally settled on one and gave it her best shot...a good
educational experience in any case...of the poorer but
wiser variety....

A Day In Raleigh

On October 3rd we took a bus, actually two, over to Raleigh, to have a look at the state capital. After a couple months of moving in and going through our stuff, we needed some travel time. Click to enlarge.

Sip n' Stroll Downtown...what a concept!

Until 1974, widely regarded as our worst president ever

Before the state capitol, a monument to three presidents, Jackson,
Polk, and Johnson, who hailed from NC--it would be hard to think
of three worse ones...wait, no, it's easy to think of three worse ones...
Nixon, W, and Trump 

Siege mortar guarding the capitol

Moving right along...as I have always observed, in time everything
becomes a restaurant...former Art Deco gas station, now a Mexican
restaurant

Still in the Sip n' Stroll district

Now in the historic district (the flag says so), admiring the old
houses

And associated curiosities

Now in the new government buildings district

Southern Gothic Baptist district

Latin Quarter

Some serious Art Deco here and there

Even says so

Deco Echo

Local humor

Serious Deco

We had lunch at a quite decent German restaurant

Similar to the currywurst I had; Hofbrau bier too

Fungus Among Us

Except for passing hurricanes, it's been a pretty dry fall. With every sprinkle, however, mushrooms pop up, the most varied we've ever seen...

Show-stopper

H-Mart

We were in the Bay area many months, 2010-2022--visiting daughter Rebecca, grand-parenting Penelope, basing ourselves for western travels, locking-down for COVID--and never found an Asian market we liked. There was a small one near Santa Cruz Avenue in Menlo Park--it had everything--but then it closed by 2014 or so. We never found anything else that had the array of SE Asian ingredients we wanted. I even resorted to pinching kaffir lime leaves from the local nursery. But in Cary, Rebecca alerted us to the H-Mart, a mile from us, which turned out to be absolutely the largest Asian market we have yet encountered in the US. It even had kaffir lime leaves, although pretty browned and spoiled, but it was still an experience to behold here in NC. Turns out it is part of a South Korean chain, which explains its emphasis on Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese products...and its relative lack of emphasis on Indian, SE Asian, and actual Chinese products. Nonetheless, it was by far the best Asian market we've seen outside of Asia. And not without its curiosities and other items of interest.

Gotta have durian, even frozen; sine qua non

Enormous produce section

Sugar cane

Banana leaves!

Jujubes

Cow parts

C

Shhh...be vewy, vewy quiet...

Assorted bloods

Pork uterus...pork bung...stir-fry, sure, but the wine
pairing could be tricky...

Excellent source of potassium; does not taste like
chicken

Long aisle of cooking utensils, apparati

Entire aisle of seaweeds

Yum

Gotta try this

Gift boxes of dried anchovies

More seafood than probably all the Teeters of Raleigh combined...