I think one of the few redeeming features of my job is that i get to travel to HKG and then have a little R&R time on the side. This one is taken @ Bonnington market, Wanchai. It's always lively and bustling in the mornings or weekends when I walk past. It never fails to reminds me of the wet market in Chinatown/Holland V in SG.
As a kid, i hated the wet markets because they were well, wet, stuffy, smelly, and dirty. I had to grip my grandma or aunt's hand tightly as i gingerly navigated my way through all the fresh produce that was laid in boxes on the floor. There'd be chicken feathers, animal blood, assorted animal/veg debris littered everywhere. Occasionally, a fish or prawn would try to escape out of the basins and lay gasping, and sputtering before someone threw it back in. The crabs would be trussed up in coloured raffia string and occasionally wave a claw. Turtles were parked in styrofoam boxes, frogs in pails. You can also see people picking live fish out and the hawkers, in their plastic aprons and bright red clogs would proceed to hack them to death on a huge chopping board. I'd be squirming impatiently as Grandma/ Aunt made their way through the little stalls, haggled over the prices or picked out produce. Then, they'd get sick of my whining and make me wait at the pet stall so i get distracted by the goldfish and guppies. That was my favourite section.
I also remember back in those day, every market had a grisly machine where they plonked live, squawking chickens/ducks in and they came out defeathered and dead. Ugh. Childhood memories are made of these eh?
After shopping for what seems like an interminably long time, we'd finally be rewarded with breakfast. pancakes with peanuts (mungchung kweh), soybean milk, and/or fried noodles, roti prata, etc.
If only i had a time machine that would transport me back to those smelly markets instead of the sterile ones we have right now.
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