The Mens’ Brief Excursion To Goldfish Street, Mong Kok

Rockstar has a serious travel-and-adventure-bug, and I didn’t want the baby’s keeping us home-bound to grate on his nerves (worse yet, make him equate the lack of new adventure to her arrival), so it’s working out well that The Mens have determined to go off on an excursion every one or two weeks…

Here’s a bunch of hurriedly snapped pictures from The Mens’ recent trip to “Kam Yee Kai” as Kings decides to give his Mini Me a “very local Hong Kong Experience” which includes tram riding and eventually market traversing. (As in, the kind of market where say, they sell snake like they do other meat at the butcher’s, stuff like that… A former beloved boss from Brisbane quite a few years ago was very taken by being able to watch these tai tai with seriously branded bags come and buy snake and stuff the bloodied pieces in their LV shoppers…)

While completely illiterate in Chinese like I am, Kings can swing enough Cantonese to get by like a local, since he speaks well enough to ask directions and chat with them. When we first got here 7+ years ago, he would sit by himself out among the little eateries, soaking up “the local experience,” sometimes coming home with slightly breathless tales of people chasing each other with baseball bats. Back then the locals would tell him the implicit understanding is this is not random and you are not going to get in trouble if you did not “tangle with the wrong people” so just stay out of their way.

(Also, pics not very nice because I reiterated for Kings to watch Rockstar more than take nice pics for me…)

It’s still mostly cold now, which is why they took the opportunity to come here – we would not recommend going into one of HK’s most densely populated areas in summer if you can help it… Even our previous local driver (not the old batu api one, the one before that who only agreed to a temp gig until his internet startup biz was set up) would warn us off coming here unless absolutely necessary in the heat. (As in, crowded = body odor.)

Rockstar posing in random carpark because Dis Is What Mens Do.

And the obligatory Pic Of “Worms” To Frighten Mummy. (Though I looked at another pic and these have legs so they are not worms and in fact I think these are the grubs they put in those lollies and dare you to lick as close as you can…)

These below I think are “good luck frogs”…

(Unless that is, they are fish food… But a former RM used to have two large ones in a fish tank in her office, which she would stroke for good luck and I thought they looked like these…)

Self explanatory, comes with own sign…

Nothing new here, Kings and I bot pet lobsters in a tank while we were in Sing too… They have an annoying habit of escaping no matter how secure we think the tank is…

Creepily, they look exactly like the ones in Rockstar’s lobster bisque at Caffe Habitu…

This awkward pose has to be Kings’ fault…<cringe>

(Rockstar, when you’re old enough think this is uncool, Mummy would like you to know it was Daddy’s fault :D)

Now what’s this?

Oh turtles (above), and what looks like a chameleon lizard (here). Or is it an iguana, since it’s still green? Told em they are allowed salamanders or something simple like fighting fish, nothing salt water and though I like snakes and iguanas they can’t have either because for some reason I am quite worried the baby might be allergic to the pee – we have no place for a tank I consider big enough to not be cruel about it, and so the thing would have to be let out around the apartment quite often. I don’t think they toilet train as easily as border collies.

I know there’s a kind of star tortoise that’s endangered, but offhand I don’t know exactly which – a guy I knew in uni (Singapore) had them, they were very young and tiny and soon went blind from malnutrition because they were too shy to eat enough, instead spending their time hiding in their shells. We took em to the vet for vitamin shots whereupon I think they slowly regained their sight eventually but were so much work to feed. Then the vet asked where my friend had got them from, because she had to report it as they were endangered…

Wandering about, wandering about…

Aha fighting fish!

And then some!

And then Gangnam Style-ing through some alleyway or other….

And home with their loot – 3 fighting fish. The one in the middle is in the middle because it’s real scrappy.

Harry, Larry and Mo (Not their real names)

I don’t allow Rockstar to let them fight super often; Rockstar being Rockstar didn’t take much convincing – after I told him they hurt themselves if they bump into the walls from trying to get at each other all the time, he has imposed stricter “fight times” than I would otherwise have, myself.

Ps: No fighting fish, border collies or babies were harmed in the making of this post.

Pps: Notice something? Not one picture of a goldfish.