In Guangzhou, there is a famous market where you can find anything you need to cure your ailments based on Chinese medicine practices: sea horse, insects, deer antler, snake, turtle, giant mushroom, starfish… and many more dried ingredients we couldn’t recognize when we visited.
It was a very interesting place and I really enjoyed the opportunity to soak up the atmosphere of the market and take (hundreds of) pictures.
Little G had a blast: his personal favorite ingredient were the sea horses (only to look at of course!)… but he wasn’t too keen on the snakes!
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Voyagista’s tips
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The market is called Qingping and it is located close to Shamian island. It is spread out over a few buildings so take your time to see what you can find. We didn’t see any other tourists while we were there.
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Since the SARS outbreak, the market has been “cleaned” and we didn’t see any live or rare animals nor controversial ingredients. We suspect they are available out the back if you have a special request!
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Did we buy anything? Yes we did! A dried sea horse perhaps… for dipping into soup? No, we took some dried lemon slices for our tea…
Which ingredient interests you the most?
VOYAGISTA 
Wow this Qingping market is wild to say the least.
I’ve been to Asian markets but nothing like this.
Great pictures and a great post!!