Shopping in Hong Kong

I know this blog is called “living life in Australia” but I took a short trip to Hong Kong. Hong Kong is great and a shopper’s paradise! While here I have literally shopped till I dropped. At the end of the day my feet are sore; I even wore out my shoes from walking from shop to shop. Fortunately that gave me an excuse to buy a new pair! We visited the markets in Mong Kok. Mong Kok has a gold fish market, a bird market, a flower market, a jade market, a ladies market, and lastly 3 regular shopping markets! I LOVE Markets!!! I was in heaven, minus the pollution, hundreds of people, and smothering humidity. The bird market was our first visit. It was terrifying; I felt like I was in the movie “the birds” by Alfred Hitchcock, SO much squawking and chirping. We all just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. There were at least 20 birds in one cage. When you think that birds usually have the entire sky to fly around, it is so sad that they are stuck in those small cages. People often say they wish they have the ability to fly, yet we take away that ability from an animal that has it naturally by trapping it in small cages.
We then went to the flower market. There were thousands of orchids, my favorite flower. Beautiful Orchids were only $20 Hong Kong, which is about $3 USD. In America an orchid much worse looking can cost up to $40 USD. I wanted to buy them all but would never be able to leave Hong Kong with them so I settled for taking hundred of photos; however, I was getting dirty looks. There were signs around requesting no photography, but I don’t understand why. They are flowers….. The color doesn’t fade from the flash and it doesn’t steal their souls. It was really odd, so I just continued to take pictures and anyone who has a problem with it can suck it. We then ventured to the regular markets and the jade market
I bought so much. Seriously someone should hide my wallet from me. I am out of control. The only way I can justify my behavior is with these excuses: 8 HK dollars = 1 USD, I haven’t been shopping in 6 months, and I’m on vacation. So I bought: 2 pairs of sneakers, 6 sweaters, 5 shirts, 3 bags, a ring, 2 bracelets, pearls, a photo album, and jade. This list does not include gifts I bought for others…. So yes that means that all that stuff I listed if for myself. However, I did bargain down for a lot of these things items. I was on fire! One item I bargained down by $160 Hong Kong dollars. However, I think the joke is on me, seeing as I have no idea how I will take all this stuff back to the US. I will probably end up paying more money than all these things are worth in fees for overweight luggage. Sellers were quite eager to bargain. I went to one stand to look at a wallet and heard the seller speaking to this lady about a bag; she was charging $230HK for the bag. The lady started to walk away and the seller started running after her and screaming “OK $180, OK, OK, I MEAN $100, $100” with the bag in hand. It was so entertaining!