A Stroll in Shum Shui Po

During the Lunar New Year holidays, hawker control is more relaxed in some places such as Shum Shui Po, making a walk around much more interesting than usual.  My wife and I started by having 牛肚 (tripe),  牛腩 (brisket), and 牛筋 (tendon) for lunch, washed down with Hong Kong style milk tea.

Some people were having dim sum al fresco on the sidewalk.  In some foreign countries people eat al fresco to watch the world go by as well as to be seen.  Here neither seems to be happening.  They are really there to eat, and to play with their phones.  

You can buy teas of all kinds.  They have very different packaging and impressive-sounding brand names.  But I suspect they may not be that different from each other.  

You can buy tea cups to go with them. 

There are herbs for all purposes, even cancer.  

You can buy colourful stones, precious or not.  There are all kinds, shapes, and colours, notoriously difficult to price.  

Old bills and coins.  I must have some of them in the bottom of my drawers.  Perhaps it is time to dig them up.  

Old black, plastic records.  Some people insist that they sound better, because they are analog.  I am afraid my ears are not good enough to tell the difference. 

You can buy a ceramic pillow.  They are hard (I can testify to it - I used to use one occasionally when I was small).  But they are also cool, and particularly good for summer. 

How about an old passport, or polaroid instant camera?  A couple of young people were bargaining for some iPODs.  It wasn’t that long ago that iPODs were the new IN, must-have items.  

A couple of artists were painting the street scenes, right in the middle of all that.   How much discipline and concentration does it take to do that?

We didn’t buy anything.  But it was a relaxingly enjoyable way to spend half a day.  Now it is time to go home to enjoy some home-grown organic vegetables for dinner.