Sassy Mama Family Field Trips: Goldfish Market

This week for our family field trip we found ourselves wandering the streets of the Goldfish Market in Prince Edward. A far cry from last week’s activity, where guest blogger Sophie, was trying her hand at indoor skiiing at PLAY, Hong Kong’s largest indoor ski and boarding centre. You can read all about her experience here.

 

But back to the more mundane activity of goldfish spotting, this week the intrepid field-trippers were: two thirty-something parents (slightly frazzled from yet another early 4.30am wake-up call from the toddler in their lives) and Gracie, the toddler in question, who it appears doesn’t need that much sleep these days.

Actually this is slightly inaccurate because when we did turn up at the Goldfish Market we were already one man down as Gracie had completely conked out, the 4.30am start having got the better of her for once – so we did what any good parents would do in that situation and went for a foot massage while she had her 40 winks!

Once we were all revived and refreshed, we hit the streets in search of those goldfish. The Goldfish Market is located on Tung Choi Street North, Prince Edward, Kowloon and each side of the street is lined with shops selling all sorts of fish – from your bog standard goldfish to lesser known and more exotic species. Intermingled with the fish shops there are also pet shops selling puppies, rabbits, guinea pigs, mice, and hamsters to name a few of the furry little friends on offer.

But should you fall under the spell of all those fish – and after all it is very auspicious according to Feng Shui to have an aquarium in your home – you can buy some impressive tanks, fish food, and all the other paraphernalia to make your little fish feel at home in your home. We actually got off scot free, Gracie, thankfully didn’t quite get the concept that we could buy the fishes in the polythene bags hanging from the doors and walls of the shops, which was a good thing as I didn’t really fancy carrying both her and a fish home on the MTR. Instead she was quite happy to just marvel at all the wonderful colours of the glistening fish, but her favourite creature (sorry fish!) was a British Bulldog puppy (and don’t worry fish, he didn’t make it home either)!

Hits: good fun if your kids love fish, they’ll enjoy exploring what the shops have to offer; cheap if you window shop of course, but even if you buy just one little goldfish it won’t break the bank; interesting and educational to see how many different species of fish you can spot; relatively easy to find and easy to get to on the MTR, very close to Prince Edward MTR station.

Misses: it’s not that big, so don’t go expecting a whole day’s activity, it will take a couple of hours or perhaps longer depending on how involved your fish spotters get, but perfect for an afternoon activity; busy on weekend afternoons so you may prefer to avoid the crowds and go in the week.

How to get there: by MTR: Take the Tsuen Wan line (red line) to Prince Edward and take exit B2, walk straight ahead and turn left onto Nullah Road, walk a short way along this road until you hit Tung Choi Street North.