That being said, there were also side streets that had stalls of their own, though they were less for tourists and more for locals as far as I saw. Selling things like vegetables and fruits and probably meat too. I wonder about living in a place near one of these sorts of fresh produce markets and being able to shop from them every day or night, hmmm. The idea is slightly romantic to me, actually. I feel like Mom might have used to occasionally visit and buy stuff from nearby fish wet markets at one point in Singapore in the distant past, though I’m not certain of that, and I definitely don’t think we did the same for vegetables and fruits.

There were other side roads leading off to real shops as well, but again there were so many shops already around the Hong Kong Island region (Wan Chai) that I stayed in that it didn’t really stick out to me.

I wanted to go back south to my region of the map, Hong Kong Island, to have dinner though. So I took the same trains back, but picked a different station to alight from, Causeway Bay Station, which was one stop east of my usual stop (Wan Chai Station) and two stops east of the station connected to that Pacific Place mall that I had been at earlier (Admiralty Station). Part of the reason was that there was apparently something called “Times Square” there, and after being to the one in New York, I just had to see this one as well. It was just the name of a random mall, though, and I didn’t even end up going in.

Instead I went west and south, among other things stumbling across another meat market, still opened late, which left me worrying again about the hygiene of the leftover fish, especially at this point in the evening.

But again, it probably shouldn’t really be a thing I worry about that much, since my memory of Singapore’s wet markets are that they’re rather “dirty”, too, though nothing a good rinse and extreme heat won’t fix. I always try to avoid stepping on any wet floor tiles near fish stalls when I can, though, as I think they’re particularly dirty compared to other random water puddles around.

Talking about fish, I found this random sushi restaurant hidden inside a small mall, the exact sort of little mall that I love exploring for secrets. It was called Genki Sushi and had a rather sizable number-based queue waiting around outside of it.

Live the Genki Life! I wasn’t planning on eating here though so I moved on.

Elsewhere in the mall, I saw this sign in a second-hand/consignment clothing store that I agreed with.

“For you it is the FASHION CHOICE. For animals it is LIFE or DEATH.”

I didn’t go shopping here, but I still could use more cheap clothes, and I do like exploring second-hand outlets.

Walking on a bit more, I found myself accidentally back on the same street where I had visited in the afternoon, and staring right at another queue of people, this time outside the Trusty Congee King store that I had eaten at.

Apparently tons of people go out to eat dinner around 7 pm or so, and not that many people go out for lunch around 3:30 pm. Oh right, I had a late lunch so that wasn’t a good barometer for how crowded places are at lunch.

Anyway there were several decent-looking and decently-priced eateries along that street, so I ended up eating at one that was directly across the street from the Congee King, just out of principle. This place was called Rainbow Cafe, and I had their Fried Kway Teow. It also came with a small complimentary bowl of corn soup, and was great.

I learnt though that I could no longer use WeChat Pay since I was outside of Mainland China, due to draconian government rules.

They didn’t accept my credit card either but thankfully I had some actual cash on me, so I ended up with some colourful notes in return as change.

After that, I made my way home, the only other notable thing along the way being this restaurant that I passed that had live foodstock inside tanks that were facing the store entrance. I probably will never not feel uneasy about seeing these and imagining how the creatures must feel being trapped in a small tank and waiting for death.

Back at home, I spent a relaxing evening writing up this blog post, basically my third of the day, and then chilling out a little before bed. I have some bookkeeping notes that I wanted to leave here as well.

1. A note on the lodging page (local) where I booked my stay from says that “To comply with government waste reduction measures, starting from April 22nd, 2024, Ying’nFlo will no longer provide any disposable amenities (including toothbrush, toothpaste, shower caps, comb, and razor).” Despite that, all this is still in my cupboard anyway, and this was after me opening up one toothbrush and two toothpastes:

They even refilled the toothpaste when they came in for maid service while I was out today.

2. There’s this interesting note on the table:

I guess I won’t be spending that time at home working on my blog or my work! Rude, I like spending my mornings and even early afternoons working instead of going out.

3. I killed the harmless little fly that was in the bathroom. It perched next to the sink all morning, which made me nervous, but it never moved so I was fine with it there. While I was out, it flew to a place in the shower and I wasn’t going to go anywhere near there while it was perched on the wall there, so I nuked it with a spray from the shower and washed it down the drain. I feel a bit guilty about it though.

4. I think I’m about to get my voice back soon. It’s been annoying, but at the end of the day I feel like I was perhaps starting to regain a very little bit of my voice. Perhaps it’s like a fake spring in the middle of winter and will continue to be missing though. No way to tell until tomorrow. Hopefully I do recover because I hope to meet up with an online acquaintance from Twitch called WingBenny if I regain my voice before I leave Hong Kong. Whatever form of laryngitis or whatever this is is very blah.

5. The only pieces of my trip left to book are my lodging in Singapore, and my journey back home. My credit card bill from last month is in the middle of clearing, but should clear with no problem at all, and from what I calculate it will probably be smooth sailing through next month too, so I think I’ve managed to avoid dipping into that $6,000 bucket keeping my Scotiabank account free of monthly fees.

6. Maid service left me two cans of water. Why is drinking water canned here? The cans have a 100% recycleable logo on them, but still. I boil my own water anyway but now I’m not sure if it’s more wasteful to drink the cans or not drink the cans.

7. My JVC earphones annoyed me a lot today because the mic in the damaged side of the earphone seemed to keep on toggling on and off and causing the phone to pause the stream I was listening to and try to open a voice input program instead. I had to change it out with that new pair that I had bought in Guangzhou, perhaps for good. That new pair has one really loud earphone and one really soft earphone to me, though I’m not sure if that’s something to do with the direction that the sound is coming out of the earphone or something, since the “soft” setting is me putting the left earphone into the right ear, and it isn’t a earbud that goes all the way into the inner ear or anything like that. And I don’t have a working left ear to test putting the left earphone into!