markets
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
Today we spent the morning in Kowloon. First up were the bird and flower markets. Kenny was considerably more interested in the former than the latter, and seemed just as interested in sparrows that were milling about stealing seed as he was in the colourful birds in the cages.
We also visited the jade market, and I was pleased to find a fellow fashioning a piece by hand right in the market. His work stood out from the many stalls that were all carrying the same bits. Apparently the trick in shaping jade is to use a small piece of jade as your tool, carving out the shape from the larger piece under construction. I was surprised that that would work, but it certainly explains the polished look that jade so often has.
Mari bought a necklace made from "cat's eye".
We then did the tour of shopping streets that sell black market stuff, and I bought some, uh, off-license "LEGO" for a dollar a box. They're small mementos for our nephews, I'm keen to see if the quality is anything to speak of, and whether the bricks even can be used with "real" LEGO.
That the stuff is so astonishingly cheap (these were 60-80 piece sets) tells me to keep my expectations low. And that the LEGO people have some 'splaining to do with their prices and the hum-drum nature of many of their designs. I know that LEGO-the-company has become a viciously litigous corporation, and I've heard first hand that it's a faceless operation with no imagination in its dealing with, for instance, ad agencies.
The LEGO toy has become something of a luxury item at prices that routinely amaze me. It's molded plastic, and the designs aren't really all that imaginative any more.
There were several imaginative designs among those black market models for sale in Kowloon. Kits that used a lot of the old fashioned technique of employing many simple parts to make models that are as distinctly "LEGO" as they are accurate and interesting models. Such kits can be used for many designs beyond the original, and of course these designs can look nothing alike because of the various ways that the many small, non-specialized pieces can be assembled.
I was pleased to see that the bootleg stuff seemed to have the right design philosophy. I hope LEGO takes note.
Lastly, we went to the 'goldfish market', a street full of aquarium stores. I bought a variety of things for combatting ammonia build up in the fish tank. This included a test kit that allows for 130 tests for about $8. That certainly beats the 5 tests I bought for $9 here in Tokyo! I'd been struggling to find the other items at all, here in Tokyo. It was good to find them with relative ease. Hong Kong sure is the better place to shop!
Among the many wondrous stores along the route, we saw sprawling great 5+ meter display aquaria, stores specializing in marine reefs, and aquaria with gorgeous grown-up gold fish at the same 'sticker price' that they sell for in Canada—the difference being that the $HK trades at about 7:1 to the $CA.
A lot of shopping.