Foreign ingredients, from sea weed and bean curd to tortillas and salsa, are now readily available in large supermarkets.

I can pick up from among the brilliant spray many pretty shells and colourful pebbles, as well as some lovely green sea weed as delicate as human hair.

Or they may be algae which colour the sea green, like the carpet of weed in Qingdao that nearly brought the sailing to a halt in last year's Olympic games.