Oh! precious swallow's spit

Find myself in Hongkong once more, loitering around in winglok street as I often land up doing. Hongkong is one of the most pedestrian friendly cities I know. Climate is benign with occaisional showers this time of the year, however I certainly didn't mind the drenched welcome that the skys showered me with, having missed Mumbai rains. Walking along some shops kept seeing round white sev type bowls selling by the dozens nicely packed in transparent boxes sort of what we'd use for gifting sweetmeats. I guessed them to be birds's nests on being asked about them by a friend. However since there were so many shops dedicated to selling only these, that too in one of very central districts of HK, I was surprised. Couldn't figure out how they could be selling so many birds nests, considering they are harvested only twice a year in Indonesia and I would expect them to be a rare delicacy. For uninformed let me tell you birds nest look like white or brown sev (what muslims have at end of ramadan for eid a sweet delicacy), with round bowl like nest shape. They're made by birds (Swallows) I think secreting saliva and weaving them. In order to maintain sustainable bird population there r neccesarily restrictions on harvesting in the wild, although I'm sure some people might have found a way to make domestic farms for them aswell. In any case my confusion about seeming profusion of availiblity and hence implied casuality nd non rarity of buying it was quickly resolved when I went in a shop and asked price for a pack. 45000 hkd for a pack about 1kg. That would be about 7000USD per KG!