First time I can remember hearing about this fruit although I think I've seen them in markets. My search results for "Korean melons" fortunately didn't fly too far in the indecent direction, I bought a box after these were recommended to me by a cop I met in the Busan supermarket. We also talked a lot about SK cinema.

They are reeeally good, like a cantaloupe//apple/vanilla ice cream flavor, very unique.

Chamoe!

참외

"Though there are many varieties of melons popular in Korea, the most common to North America is the chamoe, better known (in the US anyway) as the Korean melon."

https://westchestermagazine.com/food/what-is-a-korean-melon/

chamoe! thank you! I definitely know that word, although not how to pronounce it.

chamoe roooocks

Thank you. I'm really happy to know the actual name now.

Oh, man, do I! The local Korean grocery has them, and I treat myself every visit. 🤩🤌🏼

Awesome, I scarfed down this entire box in a sitting! They are really, really tasty, like instantly floating somewhere in my favorite fruits list now tasty. I'll definitely be on the lookout now. Are they pricey where you are? These were almost $1 USD each.

That makes them half as expensive as a small avocado, these days. 😂😅😶

ha, yikes.

I'm in china now, which has fruit-specific grocery stores, so i'm going to check for chamoe in those.

Hol'up. You said "fruit-specific grocery stores"? <Bam! Right in the curiosity.> How does that work?

Yea, they're all called 果果..., so if you see a shop called 果果-something in China, chances are that's it's a fruit-only grocery store. I'm not sure why, but China has shops and stores that exclusively sell fruit, and they're very common.

Oh wait, not fruit-specific as in one type of fruit, is that what you mean? It's still somewhat remarkable that even though every supermarket and many smaller stores have fruit, there are still tons of shops in China that only sell fruit. I always found that interesting, but everyone in China just shrugs when I ask them why and says "fruit is good" or some equivalent as the reason for the abundance of fruit-only stores.

Oh, man, I was picturing entire shops dedicated to specific fruits, but at least fruit only shops exist there, yes. That sounds amazing! 🤩🤘🏻

Yea, it's pretty cool. There are actually a lot of specific stores in China that are also very common. Like snack stores, so you can buy a single piece of beef jerky or duck neck or dried mango in a little packet, and there are maybe 400 different little packets of all kinds of snacks organized in little open drawers, and you throw each bite into your basket and then bring all the packets up and instead of having to buy a big pack of one thing you can get a grab bag of twenty different tiny snacks for the same price. And the beer is always crazy cheap there too, since a lot of these are savory beer snacks.

There's so much that's interesting here, it's really fun to be back.

That does sound like a feast of fun, for sure! 🤩🤘🏻🤓 And here I'd always assumed that visiting China'd be dangerous and/or terrifying, frankly. I can't exactly pass, and the only bit of Chinese I learned (back in the 90s) was actually Taiwanese, so 🤷🏼‍♂️🤌🏼😝

silver lining of the authoritarianism and surveillance is that china is incredibly safe, and on the street level, chinese people like their comforts, plus their food is amaaaazing, so it's generally a pretty good time. Both China and Taiwan speak Mandarin, although Taiwan pronunciation is much more clear and standardized than Chinese Mandarin, so you'll still have a little bit of a leg up if you decide to visit. Beijing is just gray though, if it wasn't for my Beijing friends I would be in Chongqing or Dali or somewhere with cleaner air.

Overall though, China is a wildly comfortable place to live. It would be the easiest thing to just stay here and luxuriate in the comfort and convenience of instant deliveries and the cheapest electronics, super safe neighborhoods, cheapest groceries, amazing mountains and natural landscapes, head massages! And a million things to learn every day.

You're certainly selling it well enough —if I weren't personally inspired to leave this authoritarian collapse and not replace it with another in a different costume. 😅😝🤞🏼

If you only had the US or China to choose from, and both have pleeeenty of problems, at least in China you have access to high-quality affordable housing/healthcare/education/other cultures, good food, etc, but there are another 200ish countries you can choose from, and most of them are going to offer a better deal than the US does to its residents. Thailand's always near the top of the list, Medellin is very nice, I'm really into Busan now; you have lots of good options.

Totally, yep. I've been pining for Barcelona for decades now, with Frankfurt a close second, and Roma/Firenze not far behind, but looking through your posts these days has shown me so many wonderful places in their unfettered, unfiltered beauty, so thank you, intrepid anon! 🙇🏼‍♂️✊🏼✨

I appreciate that, thanks. There are so many fascinating sights and locations that don't need any ornament. Rome's a great example. The Colosseum and churches are very cool of course, but the aqueduct park is without pomp and circumstance, a massive park with the enormous, original columns and arches of ancient Roman aqueducts open to the public. You can walk right up and touch them and climb up and sit on some of the support columns that have fallen down. The ancient infrastructure is sitting and standing there in a giant park that anyone can go see and interact with. The Appian way still has many original stones to it too, all the good cafes and handmade gelato are down little alleys, the Sicilian coast itself was breathtaking, there's so much to see and do that we don't have to wait in line or buy tickets for.

I've only heard amazing things about Barcelona but haven't been there myself yet, feel free to post and let us know how things go when you make it there.

It might be a minute, but I'll hope to land that dream before lemmy kicks the bucket, at least? 😝

Rome's been there a while, I expect it to be there a while longer. you'll have your chance!