HK Bird and Flower Markets

On a sweltering Saturday we made our way out to Mongkok to peruse the HK Flower and Bird Markets. The variety of flower types for sale is really incredible, we brought home an orchid that will surely beautify our flat if we can manage to keep it in the land of the living. The bird market is always interesting to see. Chaos reins as billions of birds trapped in hundreds of cages struggle in vain to liberate themselves. Old Chinese men gather in groups and evaluate each others birds and engage in trading and selling of the birds. The transactions are all done in Cantonese, but I'd be very interested to know what they are saying.

We sweated our way through both markets, occasionally popping into a store to steal some of their air conditioning. Ingrid has a new little clip on fan that keeps her cool, though it rarely spins because she is so busy sticking her fingers into the blades to stop the motion. The compulsion to purchase a bird came over us as we thought about how romantic it would be to live in HK and have a songbird in one of those elegant old wooded birdcages. Thankfully better judgement crept in as we realized we'd have a hard enough time keeping our orchid alive let alone a little songbird.