Hello Ladies.........Market

Breakfast was again a strange strawberry-based macaroon, a few sour cream & onion Pringles and a cup of black coffee. Just what you need to get the day going. So once we had polished it off and made ourselves presentable we left Chungking Mansions to visit he markets that lay up north.

The infamous Chungking Mansions 

The main road through the area, Nathan Road, is almost like The Strip in Las Vegas, as there are just people everywhere, and most of them are trying to sell you a suit or some such tat. It was a fair hike to get to the Ladies Market too, which was our first item on the agenda. And before you ask, it is just a name, it isn’t for women only. It was pretty good too, and nothing like the madness of Xuan Dong in Hanoi! There was (just about!) space to squeeze between the stalls and people were kind and polite…reasonably. Most of the market sellers were nice and friendly if you were interested in their stuff, but if you walked away they sometimes got quite vocal with you as if they expected you to buy whatever it was just because you had had a conversation with them. Overall though it was a good experience and we managed to get some good stuff, although James was unsuccessful in negotiating for the coat he wanted, but we would have another chance to get that as we weren’t leaving HK until Friday.

The Ladies Market

As we left the Ladies Market we wandered through another, but lesser, market nearby, but we kept our wallets firmly in our pockets this time. Near to that market was the Goldfish Market, and well, we just had to go and check that out! So we found it just round the corner, and it was more of a “fish avenue” as opposed to a goldfish market. Shop after shop of fish and other pets, unfortunately with some of them being kept in less-than desirable conditions. The best ones were the ones with the cats in though, they were absolutely adorable. But a bit out of our price range at £700 each.

I'm sorry, I don't have £700 to spare... 

As we left we took a route through a fish market, just to see what delights lay within. Well, there was pretty much anything you care to guess, and even an escaped eel, until the natty fishmonger managed to scoop it back up into his net with a flick of his wrist.

Just WHAT is in that bag...?

We had seen on the map that there was a rather large park near to the hotel so we took a stroll through on our way back to the hotel. It was pretty nice, with an aviary by the entrance housing some parrots and other exotic birds. But we weren’t allowed to disturb them mind, not unless we wanted to pay HK$1,000. There was a rather good open-air swimming pool, save for the fact that it was empty…of people and water. A couple of fountains and a big warning sign about mosquitos completed the journey and we were out and heading back towards Chungking Mansions.

I got a little bit jealous of this guys camera...

For the evening we spent a long time walking the streets of Hong Kong trying to find somewhere to eat. We had heard of a place called Mr Wongs where you could pay HK$50 and get all the food and drink you could eat, but we couldn’t find it. Or we could, but it looked very dodgy, so we moved on. There were a lot of gun shops in the area too, so I’m not sure how good an area it was. In the end we essentially re-traced our steps from our trip round the markets earlier that day, and we found a small diner that was serving reasonably cheap fodder, so we took a table for two. It was OK, but pretty functional as it had got quite late, so we just paid the tab and left the place, thankfully without getting drinks spilled on us like the couple on the table next to us.