I feel like a bit of a fraud with this blog right now, it’s a street food blog, but well the streets are empty, and even if they weren’t street food wouldn’t be the top of my culinary desires right now.
During coronavirus, I’ve largely stayed in the apartment or the complex, but today I was to go in search of some mystery drug that cures things even better than hot water (every shop has ran out). I found a shop open that was renting out scooters. There’s literally nothing I love more than driving around on a scooter! Something I’ve done in Nauru, Tuvalu, Vietnam, Thailand, and good old Yangshuo. I’d actually never driven in any other part of China, but with rental fees of $4 a day I was sold.
I’d seen photos of Beijing etc being empty streets but I’d kind of assumed Beihai would be a little different. It is not!
Streets are not only basically empty, but the space people you see are all wearing masks, and usually carrying food supplies. The only reason to go out right is to buy food for your house.
Shops wise probably 99% of stores are closed, with markets, pharmacies, and strangely the odd fast food restaurant being the only hold outs.
Alarmingly though the few open stores report that they’ve ran out of face masks and cleansing alcohol. Many chemists too have simply just closed their doors. I cannot even imagine what the hospitals look like at the moment.
But, despite being housebound, and things being somewhat boring, I have now found a small bit of pleasure! Riding a motorbike or scooter genuinely makes me feel alive and forget my troubles, but doing it through a ghost town, literally wow.
It’s nice to have a hobby in my new found (unwanted) home of Beihai…