Hard News: Market Wisdom
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Great post thanks Russell. Sadly Avondale is way the wrong side of town for us southerners. The mere mention of Cook Street Market provokes strong memories of weekend city afternoons in crowded passageways filled with incense, tie dye, Indian cotton shirts, knock off "ugg" boots and the best hand made leather boots I have ever owned (long since worn out). It was fantastic and still sorely missed.
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Oh, and a picture of the stand that sits in the midst of it all …
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Russell Brown, in reply to
It was fantastic and still sorely missed.
I missed Cook Street's glory days, but I know quite a few people who feel the same way as you.
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Ah yes Avondale - my old stamping ground and wonderful market. I go to Mangere Market on Sat morning - mainly for fruit, vegetables and flowers. Smaller and less range but good, cheap and handy. Here the stall holders do seem to recognise me and say hello, etc, though maybe that is due to my 70's flower power trolley which is pretty noticeable.
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and just one more photo- the food here is generally pretty good, but still needs picking over.
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Hey! Nice photo post Russell.
Busy day for photos on Public Address, as it turns out. :-)
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Ha!!
“The believe in Jesus” and the “Emergency Assembly Point” and “Danger, No crossing of race track here” (Catholic races) are a nice mix and make intriguing photo capture timing!
Planned, of course, wasn’t it Russell.
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Love the Avondale marktes, don't get there often enough.
That mad family with the big stall selling tools under the stand always give me a smile. They used to scour the garage sales on Saturday buying up stock to sell on Sundays at the market. Some of the best garden tools I've got are second hand ones from Avondale market. Sadly most of their stuff is Chinese imports now.
Then there was one-arm traffic warden controlling the Ash Street entrance.
It's actually frightening driving down Ash street on a Sunday afternoon on a windy day and seeing all the plastic bags up against the fence. They seem to get it all cleaned up again and ready for the next week though.
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jb,
closely chaperoned
1982. Imagine how close the chaperoning was back then....
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The Avondale Market is indeed a great experience but you firstly have to navigate a corridor of tat (bundles of nylon socks and plastic doo-dads) until it opens up into a vista of fruit, veg and food stalls,
We have a very popular Saturday night market in downtown Hamilton, with some pretty yummy food--not French but certainly cheaper. -
Russell, definitely the best way to visit the Forbidden City is on your own in the middle of an epidemic of some new respiratory illness. My first trip there was in the middle of the SARS epidemic. I was bored out of my brain and decided after all these years I should finally visit the Forbidden City, biked over there in the mid-May bright, sunny day warmth and somehow passed the fairly cursory "have you got a fever? If so we'll lock you away until you catch SARS" test, and then it was awesome. You don't get a feeling for the scale of the place when it's as insanely crowded as it usually is, but when the only people in the nested square within a nested square are yourself and one nuclear family of good One Child Policy size..... wow. But yeah, it's certainly not a very exciting museum. I guess Chiang Kai Shek having carted half the treasures off to Taipei in '49 didn't help, but still, it's not really set up to show anybody a slice of imperial court life at all.
But now I really want to visit Avondale Market! And should you be in Beijing anytime between now and (NZ Immigration Service permitting) our departure, I'll happily show you equally cool markets around this way.
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Nice pics Russell - 'grittysocialrealism'. Tilt shifting the tools is an eye-shifter, they appear to be toy sized no matter how much I tell myself they're full sized.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Nice pics Russell – ‘grittysocialrealism’. Tilt shifting the tools is an eye-shifter, they appear to be toy sized no matter how much I tell myself they’re full sized.
When I got home and looked at the pic, I thought "this is witch magic" :-)
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
very apped...
“this is witch magic"
Switchcraft, innit?
you're soaking in it...they appear to be toy sized no matter...
It's like the Viewmaster© effect
or as if it's been 'Supermarionated',
I'd tender... -
Twenty odd years ago I asked an elderly stall holder at Avondale market how much she wanted for a small box of original Beatles 45s. She said, 'Oh you have them dear, I'm getting sick of sitting here!'.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
The Avondale Market is indeed a great experience but you firstly have to navigate a corridor of tat (bundles of nylon socks and plastic doo-dads) until it opens up into a vista of fruit, veg and food stalls
Sure, but the "tat" is part of the experience. When we were in Amsterdam, we stumbled over the Albert Cuypmarkt while in a state of extreme Rijksmuseum-induced art fatigue. :) I could have come home with a container-load of affordable hooker-chic and gee-gaws but it was fascinating. (Would have taken more photos, but a LOT of the stalls had 'no photographs, please' signs on prominent display - so the 'don't be a pervy dick' rule applied.) I'm drawn to any secondhand bookstall, even if I can't read them and they smell funny. :)
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for Chchch Market Junkies
The Vintage Market that pops up regularly at The Pallet Pavillion, has an indoor iteration, which is on this Sunday Aug 25, 12-4pm at Dux Live in Lincoln Road - lotsa stall holders signed up - I'm not there myself, but don't let that stop ya!
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Would have taken more photos, but a LOT of the stalls had ‘no photographs, please’ signs on prominent display
I really need to get Fiona to take some pictures of the bra stalls at Avondale. All laid out like a rainbow mountain range, they really are quite a sight on a sunny day. But a man taking pictures of women's underwear is not generally a good look.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
But a man taking pictures of women’s underwear is not generally a good look.
No, but I'm pretty glad nobody came flying out the door of the Berlin "Erotik Boutique" where I just had to get a snap of the patriotic window display of German-made doo-dads. In retrospect, considering it was right next to the entrance of a 'porno-kino' it could not only have been awkward but rather dangerous.
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David Hood, in reply to
But a man taking pictures of women's underwear is not generally a good look
Just tell people "It's for putting on the internet".
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I don't know how these guys get their stuff, but they're great for stocking up in toilet paper, tissues, toiletries, detergent, crayons, shopping bags, perfume, deodorant.... Much of it left overs from various promotions, but the rest, well, I can think of some possibilities....
Bird cages.
And a pigeon shop that also sells chickens, geese, pheasants, and a really fluffy rabbit. Stationery next door, should you need to write about the birds, but from memory all the traditional Chinese stuff, so better practice writing with a brush.
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More birds.
Checking out the squirrel, which she insisted on calling dàishǔ (袋鼠 = kangaroo. Squirrel is 松鼠/sōngshǔ) (oops, must remember to attach the photo).
She loves birds, but a bigger kid started encroaching on her space.
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Buddhist releasing life. Buy some critters to release into the wild so you can earn some good karma.
And as it turns out, those are all the not entirely crap photos. Was that the kind of market you wished you could've visited instead of your chaperoned tour of the Forbidden City, Russell?
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Oh, a little fiddling wit B&W, film grain, etc, and this photo is almost rescued. She also likes rabbits, and said, "Xiǎo bái tù nǐhǎo!" (hello little white rabbit!) then "Xiǎo tùzi byebye!" (byebye little rabbit!) (yes, her Chinese is way better than her English, but that's ok, she is in China and she is only 2). ETA: Forgot to say that it's a good thing she likes rabbits, having been born in a rabbit year.
All up it's a really cool market, but the outdoor areas at the northern end are constantly changing. One huge space where we used to go for toiletries and other mostly bathroom items (actually, 1st picture above), books, toys, and sometimes socks had been cleared out with a row of stalls selling carved rocks along the road but the rest empty. Disappointing, because although we found the stuff we usually buy shifted over to the other outdoor space, I didn't see the huge piles of 2nd hand machinery. I hope they come back, because they're really fascinating.
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JacksonP, in reply to
Sunday Aug 25, 12-4pm at Dux Live
We dropped in on our way to the airport. Sorry didn't catch you this time Ian. Was very much a flying visit.
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