Day 2 in Hong Kong dawned gloomy, but not rainy. Four of us, Carol, Jane, Mom and I had planned to see some local sights before shopping. We met at 7. am. and were off by 7:15 dressed for walking.
We walked today for 7.5 hours. What a great day. We cabbed it up to the far end of Kowloon to the Flower Market which was just starting. Sita had also told us that when she lived here, some days she would drop her son off at school and spend the day at the flower market, just enjoying it and just before she picked him up, she would buy some flowers. She was right about the size of the market and variety of blooms. It is a whole city block, right the way around, of stalls, some of which specialize in single varieties, like bamboo or orchids. It was a feast for the eyes, and we just gloried in being there early in the morning to see the fresh flowers arriving by trucks, and being set up, and the stalls being hosed down. The pictures do not do justice to the colors and varieties.
Then we zigzagged up to the next block to the Bird Market, which we heard before we saw it. The Chinese love birds, and many keep small birds in cages - dogs and cats being too big for those small spaces. And of course the birds are so joyful. This market was barely getting started, so we only got a little taste of it. But it was enough to satisfy us. Again little stalls, but are permanently filled with cages each with either one or many birds of all types. They were singing loudly as their night covers had been lifted and they were feeding and talking like mad. One lady was making up packages of live crickets for the birds and another man was churning out some type of noodles probably to use as bird food. Luckily we were also able to see several men with their own birds, which they had brought to socialize with the other birds. They hold up their cages so the birds can talk to one another! One old man had two cages and his newspaper tucked under his arm... so I guess one walks the birds and picks up the paper here. Charming. There were also lots of small stools and we think later it would have been filled with older men, visiting with one another as well.
We strode off, following our map to the Goldfish market. Big ones, little ones, turtles, frogs - they were all here and the merchants were bagging up the fish in plastic bags filled with water.
We had walked miles already and we were heady with being out in the awakening city, but it was only 9 a.m. and the Ladies Market didn't open till 11, so we decided to go to the seconds market at Fa Yuan Street, near by. Carol also wanted to check out a wool store. We decided to get a pastry and coffee on the way. The pastries were marvelous and cheap, but the coffee around the corner was pretty terrible. We spotted a better coffee place, and grabbed some there and ate our breakfast on their patio.
Refreshed, we hit the market. The market was primary clothes and fruit! The wool store was upstairs in a building that was clad in the bamboo scaffolding used here and we didn't like the look of the whole place, so we didn't venture in. The scaffolding is used for 20 years and is safer than using steel in this city where typhoons can take it down pretty quickly.
More walking towards the Ladies Market - at least 40 minutes. At one Chinese medicine store we passed, I thought I spotted those flowering teas, and they directed us to the most wonderful old tea store off Nathan Street that has been in business since 1881. We spent 30 minutes in here, buying all sorts of goodies, which they offer to you to smell before purchasing. They told us the Ladies Market didn't open till noon - so we headed off again to see what we could find as Carol, hadn't been there yet.
More walking, and we discovered it wasn't ready, but we saw it being set up , so we decided to go to the Jade Market.
More walking - and nearby that one, we happened on the temples that give Temple Street its name. We had not seen them at the night market as they were hidden by the vendors. Five old temples are built into one low brick building. Here people come to burn incense offerings to honour their ancestors. Beware of falling ashes say the signs beneath the large hanging lanterns of incense.
After exploring this little gem, we finally entered our first market for the day. The Jade Market is a more permanent structure which is open till 4:30 p.m. The merchants here are very very aggressive and practically entwined themselves around our legs and bodies to make a sale. It is filled with plastics, fake jade, real jade of dubious quality, and other stones. We spent a happy hour or more haggling and dealing and buying and admiring. Carol left us here to go back to her husband and daughter.
Back to the Ladies Market. This was a real hike as it was lunch hour and the streets were a crush of people. Jane set the pace walking as fast as she could, I was just behind keeping track of my mom who is not as fast a walker (she has shorter legs!!). This was another 30 or 40 minute walk, but by now we were in the zone for it. Also we were experienced market shoppers and we focused in on what we wanted and zoomed through to get the things we hadn't gotten yesterday.
We wanted to be back to the pier by 2 to go to the Chinese Arts and Crafts building. We made it in a cab. We were starving too. We headed up to this expensive, glass encased showroom, which had very high quality items and decided to get some chops carved with our names. These are stone implements carved so you can stamp your name with red ink (included), and the artist assured us we could have them done in an hour. Much to our chagrin, our appetites drove us into the McDonalds at the corner - but was it ever good, especially after the night market food last night. We picked up our chops and scurried off to the ship which had an all aboard for 4 p.m.
We ran into about 40 other shipmates in an wifi zone just off the gangway. We got back on our home ship, got showered and dressed and made it up to the Lido for a sail-away. We were exhausted and sad to leave this marvelous city.
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