Saturday morning Victoria Park Lunar Market

 Tim and I went back to the market on Saturday morning.  He did not get to see it when I took the kids during the week.  It was insanely crowded for a morning in Hong Kong!  Usually, things here get crowded later in the day.  There were all sorts of items to look at such as wonderful toys, balloons and pin wheels.

There must be some cultural aspect of things that I am totally missing. I need to do a little more research!  Here we found you could purchase blow up gold bars and coins of enormous size or you can just buy a banner with some on it.

 So, we were just walking around and all of a sudden a big TV camera gets pushed in my face and a lady starts asking me questions!  Are you a tourist? No, I live here.  (You would think we stick out or something!)  Why did you come to the market so early?  Crowds! (Are you kidding?  There were already more people in the area than we could count!)  What do you think of Chinese New Year? Incredibly interesting. (I do not understand but I am starting to now that I am part way through it!  I just found out that it is 15 days long!  Different things happen each day but I cannot find anything written--or at least in English!)  Anyway, I was smiling so wide as a fear reaction to a camera in my face that my teeth felt like they might fall out if not firmly attached.  I even felt myself turn red.  The major consolation in all of this is that it was a local station in Cantonese that no one I know would ever watch right?!  Sunday I get to church and guess what?  "I saw you on TV!"  How embarrassing!  Then someone here in the apartment elevator stops me. "I saw you on TV!"  Then the lady at the club house desk said, "I saw you on TV!"  Wow! I had my 15 seconds of fame and did not even get to see it!  Hope there was nothing in my teeth!

I do not know how much these people made at this market but check out the piles of empty boxes because the masses bought stuff for New Years.  It was like Christmas almost.  Don't tell marketers in the USA because I am sure they would want to jump on this and sell massive amounts of stuff like Black Friday!