Meesy? Baggy? Watchy?

Today I walked around every sodding market in Kowloon. Ever one. I thought it'd be fun to follow a walk in one of the books around the markets. My feet may never forgive me. Especially as I couldn't actually face buying anything.

The day was nice and dry, but extremely humid, as I trundled through the crowds in all the clothes and things markets having every second vendor shouting over 'meesy, meesy, baggy? watchy?' at me before I could even think about looking. Most annoying. Then there was the bird market - where I saw people walking their birds and a lot of birds in little cages, parrots chained to stands, etc that upset me. I know I was expecting to see that, but it did still shock me somewhat. Poor things. I wandered past the goldfish market again too and saw lots of animals that, quite frankly, must have been drugged. Can you imagine a display of 10 kittens where every single one of them is asleep, and in the box next to them a bunch of puppies - all asleep. Upsetting. I also wandered through the flower market which had, er, lots of flowers.

There's a jade market here. I'm generally totally indecisive and get very flustered if forced into making a decision. The biggest problem with the jade market was it was impossible to browse without a vendor immediately pouncing on you. Since Taiwan though, I've been on the hunt for a jade bat - I want a little dark green bat, with it's wings open. It's an auspicious symbol and, therefore, I'd have thought it easy to find a good selection. In Taiwan, I found none. Here I found a few - but nothing like I had in mind. I did learn the Cantonese (?) word for bat though. I've now forgotten it.

Before I ventured on the marketothon, I'd planned to do four museums. Hey, I'm like that on holiday, okay? As I managed to spend four hours in the History museum alone, I gave up the idea of any others. I found it really interesting though and er, can't actually think of anything else to say about it. It was good!

I finished off the evening with a lovely rice, seafood, pineapply thing served in a half pineapple, and then saw 'Charlie and the Chocolote Factory'. Interesting film, great music, scary Johnny Depp.

Funnily enough, going back to my room, I found the original 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' on - Johnny Depp's Charlie is definitely more insane, but the ending is better in the new one.

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Last night I think I made the day for a couple of 13 year olds, when I told them I thought they were about 20. I now officially accept I'm useless with people's ages!

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I have a TV in my room and the majority of the adverts are public service announcements telling people how to live their lives - what they must eat, what they must do, what they must not do, etc. I'm going to try to remember to take some photos of some of them. There are posters around too telling (I suppose) teenagers to talk about sex with their parents. I get the impression people are basically being told what to think...