My Market

This is where I have bought the vast majority of the food my family has consumed over the last 4 and a half years. Its the vegetable market, just a five minute walk from my apartment, and I have grown to love it. But, it is now gone. The last day of the year was the last day of the market, as its being demolished to build yet another high rise apartment complex. I will admit, I am a little bitter about this. It is undoubtedly going to make my daily life more complicated and much less convenient, though that's nothing compared to all the sellers who owned vegetable or meat or noodle stalls who now have no livelihood, all so they can build more apartments for more people who will, also, have no place nearby where they can buy food. But that is all the complaining I'll do for now. Instead, I just want to post this to record this place that's been part of my daily life for so long.

So, things I loved about this place: it was BIG. It was built in this old 1950's era factory building, which I just found fascinating for the history of it.
The factory's remaining smokestack, construction in the background.


The entrance to the market, covered in banners protesting the demolition of the market, though to no avail.

The vegetables--farm fresh, literally. They bring these in from the farms on trucks every morning around 5 a.m. The freshness of vegetables sold at supermarkets here cannot compare, at all. Sunday I went to a little supermarket nearby (the market was already closed) to see what they had in the way of vegetables to make a salad. They had tomatoes, but they were ALL rotted, every single one. The onions were squishy. I was not impressed.

Here is a little stall selling spices and seasonings.

The meat section. All pork here. Chicken was also available, both "fresh" (i.e. you pick out a live chicken and they kill it for you right there) or frozen. I know I'm a wimp, but I buy the frozen. This is a good photo for pointing out the down side to the market, it is no where near what any Western person would consider "clean." Amazingly, I don't know that we've ever gotten sick from food bought here, even this open-air non-refrigerated meat (we do occasionally get sick here, but almost always from eating out, not food I've fixed at home). To be honest, the dirty factor made me hesitant the first couple years about shopping here, but once I got the hang of it, and especially since Sarah's been born and we eat at home most days, I've grown to love the convenience of having so much fresh food with amazing variety so close by.
There's also plenty of stuff I don't, personally buy. A full variety of dried hot peppers, for example.
Fresh squid, another example.
These, however, I buy a TON of! Farm-fresh eggs! Delicious!
One more look at those gorgeous, gorgeous fresh vegetables. Oh how I will miss you!!!
Here is what is being built in its place. Its not hard at all to imagine why the land, with its proximity to the center of the city, would be too valuable to be used as a market for humble vegetable sellers when each of the apartments in one of these new high rise buildings will sell for around $100,000 a piece. I understand that this is simply the way things work, economically, and that eventually as all the markets get demolished in favor of high-priced residential real estate, the demand for groceries will cause more supermarkets to be built (the nearest one currently is a 10-minute taxi ride or 20 minute bus-ride away) nearby, but it doesn't mean I won't still miss my old market.