This my friends is a Chinese icy. It tastes exactly like the grape flavor of squeeze pops (aka Otter Pops). I have since discovered other (and better) versions of this, but nothing can beat the very first one. Actually second one, since I dropped the first one and it burst open all over the street. That's what I get for trying to ride my bike with brain freeze. (Okay, to be honest, I dropped the first one while I was trying to take a picture of it...)
I love these things. I will probably have drank my weight in corn syrup by the time I leave (that, and artificial colors and flavors...there is nothing natural about these things.) They put those delicious chewy tapioca pearls in them, along with strips of this strange gelatin like substance. Sometimes it has flavor, sometimes not. I love it how things change with the seasons here, you know it's summer when the little shops start selling icies instead of hot milk tea, when there are big trucks piled high with water melons parked on the street corners (while winter is marked by trucks piled with sweet potatoes), and when the street vendors start selling this dish called cool noodles (actually, it's called cool skin, because the noodle isn't made from wheat flour its made out of rice and comes in these big sheets that they slice into strips in front of you).
And then of course, it is wrapped up in a bag, and put in a styrofoam container, and then finally put into another bag. That's the only thing, everything is put in plastic. Nothing like eating a piping hot, deep fried turnip pancake out of a thin plastic bag. Oh the carcinogens! But they have started making people charge for plastic bags at stores, which is cool. I've seen people going around with the cloth bags now.
