Prince Edward Station

We couldn't decide where to go yesterday, so we planned on abandoning the guide book and hopping off at a random station. Unfortunately, Prince Edward Station quickly led to Mong Kok, and I ended opened my brochures-- I couldn't risk missing the flower market and bird garden.

However, we didn't resort to the maps right away. Until lunchtime we walked along whichever streets looked most interesting.

A Japanese restaurant. I tried to figure out how vikings related to sushi...and failed.


The real goldfish market.
I don't know where I went last time, but there were 10 times as many stores selling fish along this street.

The stores also sold an assortment of other animals:

teeny turtles,


a dinosaur,


forbiddenly photographed puppies,

and hyperactive hamsters.


With minor exceptions (a bike shop, a hardware store) every store along this street sold pets of one kind or another. All the stores were small and some were very specialized, like one that sold only bunnies. From America.


Trees? Trees!

For lunch my friend really wanted a sandwich. Or thought she did. So we found a French deli, or a restaurant that advertised itself as such.

I wished I were 12 so I could have eaten Smile Potatoes.
Alas...
The mango chicken panini tasted fine, even if it look boring to the extreme...
My friend ate seafood something or other. It contained bread, so that maybe, sort of qualifies it as a sandwich. In an I'm-ridiculous-for-even-considering-the-possibility-of-it-having-been-a-sandwich kind of way.


The restroom's open until 00:00!
After I took this photo, two ladies stepped out. I shoved my camera back into its case and pretended I hadn't just photographed the washroom door.

Then we rode an unfriendly and clanking elevator down to the ground floor, walked through some of the ordinary markets, oriented ourselves, and walked in the opposite direction from the jade market (my doing) but the exact right direction for the bird and flower markets. Along the way:

I saw another one of these signs instructing me to take a picture!


So, ta-da!

I've learned the real purpose of the signs. It's boring. Before solving mysteries I should find out whether the answer will be more or less exciting than ignorance.

Do children even trick-or-treat in Hong Kong?

Many shops and stands were overflowing with Halloween costumes and decorations, but we also found a few selling Christmas ornaments. At one store the two holidays merged together in the form of a Halloween-Christmas stocking. How curious.

I couldn't recognize a single one of these, whatever they are. Then again, I didn't look through every jar and box, so maybe, tucked away on the right-hand side of the third shelf on the left wall I would have seen something familiar.

The flower market is located on Flower Market Road.
And it smells WONDERFUL.


Dragon fruit! I still need to try some!
(if I'd been allowed to buy the kid's meal I could have...grumble...)


Honest to goodness, I couldn't figure out what all these signs meant.
No curling up with a good book?
No weight-lifting?
No short sleeves?
No slipping on marbles?
No bicycle racing?
No dogs with studded collars?


Anyway, the place OVERFLOWED with birds.

An escapee!

Then, wishing we could fill our dorm rooms with parrots, kittens, puppies, goldfish, turtles, a dinosaur, egg tarts, croissants, smile potatoes, flowers, Halloween masks, paper lanterns and no-dog signs, we returned to campus.