Vancouver Follies - chapter 3: Night Market Madness

i realize that if i don't hurry it up and finish my Vancouver Follies series, i may never, ever unravel the events of my trip (as it is, the trip was 4 days, and has taken me over 2 weeks to still tell about it)...

after dinner, we went to Richmond Night Market - this has, in the years since i've lived there, become one of the most highlighted activities for any chinese visiting Vancouver in summertime. Picture this - a large shipping carrier truck parking lot empty, spacious as far as you can see - setup full of kiosks of stalls of goods to be purchased, knock off brand names, goldfish carnival-like games, dvds, cds, phones, clothing, toys... with 2 street lengths of kiosks reserved for food - all the snacks you can think of that is typically provided like from local street hawkers from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and Japan all in 1 place (and sanitarily cleaner than from the actual street hawkers at the various places).

we roamed around, shocked like Country Mouse's first visit to the Big City, gawking and being pushed and dragged around, enormous amount of people trying to go various directions... the array of fantastic street food was amazing, everything looks soooo delicious! too bad we had gorged ourselves before coming, so we had no room to eat. there was a unanimous agreement to come back tomorrow after the Bushard Gardens in Victoria and have this food instead of dinner; so to satisfy our greedy taste buds.

On the way back to the car, we saw people still going to the Nightmarket even though it was near midnight when we left (closing time). i gawked at the asian couple where the girl was wearing no less than 4-inch heels walking on gravel and pebble road into the Nightmarket. how she can walk gracefully in those heels without a grimace to betray her pain sensors, over rugged tiva-sandals-required terrain impressed me. i hurt FOR her, thinking about the 10 minute walk to the market and 10 minutes back she needs to do.