The Hong Kong-ers love their food and despite eating out very often with their wide selection of cafes, there are many fresh food markets located in each town. Staying in the vicinity of Tsuen Wan, I visited a fresh food market to see how different it was from the regular wet market in Singapore.

One key difference was, almost all the stalls in the wet market were open and teeming with customers at 4.30pm. And from what I heard from a local, that some of these markets are opened till 2am on certain nights, 7 days a week. The Hong Kong-ers are indeed a very industrious bunch!

Vegetable stalls, rather similar to the ones we see in Singapore

There are live chickens in cages and you can still watch chickens being slaughtered

The best feature of a local fresh food market has to be the live seafood

Coming up soon, theseason of Hairy crabs

A variety of fish available

I was amazed by the variety of pork parts available

It’s no wonder that food tastes so good in Hong Kong, with their variety and affordability of fresh food.

Next on Hong Kong 2012 Part 6 and 7, see an educational side of Hong Kong.

Here are the other parts of this series of posts :

Part 1 – Hong Kong Disneyland Fun and Food

Part 2 – Flowers and Birds

Part 3 – Sartorial Hong Kong

Part 4 : Lantau Beaches

Related posts:

While I was enjoying the sights of the flowers and the birds and spending time in sartorial haven, the little boy made a trip to Lantau island with grand-dad. K claims that the Lantau Island trip is his favorite-est part of our 6 days Hong Kong visit, even better than Disneyland. Disneyland is only at No.3 of the best places that he has visited in Hong Kong.

Part of the attraction of Lantau Island beaches are the Water Buffaloes in Pui O Beach. These Water Buffalo were once a part of village life on Lantau, owned by farmers to plough the coastal plains for wet-land rice cultivation.

These Water Buffalo droppings were considered the most important fertilizer for gardens then. However as many of the Lantau Island farmers ceased farming and moved to mainland Hong Kong, these buffaloes were left to fend for themselves on the fields.

The other feature of Lantau Island are the pristine beaches with clear waters…

…and the mussels that can be found in abundance during low tide.

Mussels and shells picked up at Pui O beach

More ‘treasures’ found at Shui Han Beach

Shui Han Beach Kite-boarders in the background

You can get to Lantau island by MTR, just take to the end of Tung Chung line and then grab a taxi to Southern Lantau.

Coming up in the Part 5 of Hong Kong 2012, a glimpse into a place where locals get their fresh produce.

Here are the other parts of this series of posts :

Part 1 – Hong Kong Disneyland Fun and Food

Part 2 – Flowers and Birds

Part 3 – Sartorial Hong Kong

Related posts:

If you are a crafter who love your hand-mades, Yu Chau Street is a place to go in Hong Kong for buttons, zippers, cloth, beads, lace, ribbons and sequins. This place will put Textile Centre in Singapore to shame :P, with their shops after shops of wholesalers peddling vast array of sartorial wares.

This is the same street where I am certain ETSY sellers from Hong Kong get their supplies of these items, and are probably earning a healthy profit from selling them online.

Don’t get distracted by the busy markets in Ap Liu Street though, as it is the first street that you will see when you step out of the MTR exit at Sham Shui Po station. Yu Chau Street (see map here) is one street after Ap Liu Street, towards Nam Cheong Street.

Look out for the signs (if you can read traditional chinese), ‘Cloth’, ‘Buttons’, ‘Beads’!

Beautiful fabric at Nam Cheong Street, but you need to spot some of the shops that are willing to sell to individual buyers. Or be prepared to buy ALOT.

You can purchase lace by meter, the selection of laces come from China predominantly. These shops used to import European laces, but far lesser these days.

Lots of retro styled buttons. You can purchase buttons individually.

All types of ribbons, sold by the meter.

Vintage-style brooches and Bling

Love to make your own accessories? Then this place is where you should go to find baubles, resins, wood and stones of all kinds.

Look what I spotted in a small alley opposite Nam Cheong Street?

An Old School Barber!

To get to Yu Chau Street, take the Tsuen Wan line MTR to Sham Shui Po station and take A2 exit to Ap Liu Street. Yu Chau Street is just one street after.

Next, part 4 of Hong Kong 2012 will touch on the beaches in Lantau Island.

Here are the other parts of this series of posts :

Part 1 – Hong Kong Disneyland Fun and Food

Part 2 – Flowers and Birds

Related posts: