The Markets of Kowloon

On Saturday, Shelly and I hopped an early bus and headed to Kowloon, on the other side of Victoria Harbour. There are a slew of markets near Kowloon's border with the New Territories, an area leased from China to Britain in 1898 for a period of 99 years. (It was the end of the New Territories lease that led to Britain returning all of Hong Kong in 1997.) We had a morning full of markets to visit, starting at Flower Market Road.

I've probably never seen so many flowers all in one place. The first street we came to featured shop upon shop of nothing but orchids. Another street had more mini gerber daisies (left) than either of us could count. We also learned how the vendors keep their roses looking fresh. One vendor, at least, was removing little pieces of protective foam, peeling off the old outer petals with her fingers and then putting the foam back on.

Adjacent to the flower market is the Yuen Po Bird Garden, where we found a curious mix of old men taking their birds for a walk and people selling birds (and bird supplies, including one vendor selling meal worms and crickets by the pound). We couldn't help but think of Brad and Laura and their birds, and my friend John and his birds. We wondered how many meal worms Hara and Sunny get each day, and if Brad takes them down to the park to hang their cage in a tree while chatting and playing chess with other bird owners...

After a cheap Vietnamese lunch, we hit the streets again and headed to the goldfish market, a couple of blocks of shops that sell primarily goldfish and other fish for home aquariums, along with the odd kitten, puppy hamster and stag beetle.

It was around the goldfish market that we came upon this restaurant, the Eat Together, which is completely unremarkable except for the television screen in the lefthand window, showing the staff hard at work in the kitchen:


Our last stop after a much-appreciated foot massage was the jade market, where we were completely out of our depth and, therefore, not actually shopping, although we had a hard time convincing the shop owners that we were only looking. My plan in markets like this is to stay several steps behind Shelly so when the vendor suggests I take a look at his wares, I can shrug my shoulders and say, "sorry, she's the boss." Most of the time, this works perfectly. Plus, it's the truth.

Wandering back toward Nathan Road, where we would end up standing in choking bus exhaust for close to half an hour while waiting for our bus, we stumbled upon a few interesting street stalls, including a possible new job for Shelly:


...a "valuable gift" ...


... and a demurely covered stall selling, well, exactly what you think it's selling. At a "very cheap" price, apparently.