The New Hukou Monday Night Market

Photos by MJ Klein including FOOD PHOTOS!

Recently, the area where Hukou’s Monday night market is held began undergoing a major developmental project.  The night market had to be moved to a new location in Hukou.

We parked a little bit far away from the new night market location and walked over to it.  This is the scene at the entrance road – mayhem.

As we turned to the left to walk down the main entrance road, this is what we saw:

Some of these photos might be a little unclear as they were taken at night in the ambient light using our optically stabilized lens.  Night markets like these have literally hundreds of food vendors, with everything imaginable on offer.

I took this shot with the camera held above my head.  There was a throng of people there!

Everything you can imagine is on-hand, from fruits,

to grilled corn,

to grilled squid and chicken, just to name a few things.

This is the “crustacean man” as I call him.  He has all sorts of crabs, shrimp and even mantis shrimp for sale.

There are lots of these little game machines for kids to play.

This is one of the mobile kitchens that are setup for cooking dishes on the spot for customers.  We’re heading for another one of these kitchens.

There are quite a few grill vendors set up to grill various fare on offer.  I have to tell you that it’s all really good to.

Although they are overexposed and hard to see clearly, there are plenty of river shrimp on offer here.

This is a popular game from Japan, where people throw a baseball to try to knock out sections in the sign board.  It is a lot harder than it looks!

More games for children to enjoy.

What would any self-respecting night market be without pole-dancing strippers?

One of the many stores selling household items.

Hui-chen stops to check out some stuff at one of the stores.

The night market is a family affair so there are always lots of kids there.

This is where we are headed – to the “quick fry” restaurant.

I know this boss, who is always very friendly and polite to us.

This is a shot of him cooking at the old night market place.  He’s on his feet all night and really works hard.

This is a shot of the food you can get at his quick fry restaurant.

Now for shots of the food we got:

Fried noodles 炒麵.

This is fried lotus flower buds (tiger lilies) 炒金針花

Fried fish 煎虱目魚肚.

And my favorite fried oysters 炸鮮蚵.

This guy is demonstrating a toy top.  He has a wireless headset and it talking to the audience.  There are always several sellers doing this.

Watches for 100 NT dollars.  Not a bad deal for a watch.

Sometimes, we get a bunch of wings to take home and eat while watching TV.  They are very good!

The sheer number of restaurants and tables is surprising if you haven’t been to one of our night markets before.

After eating, Hui-chen and I walked around to see the rest of the market.

The ladies’ section.

Anyone up for shooting some BB guns?

More colorful games.

And still more colorful games!

You can buy pants at the night market, and get them altered right there on the spot.  If they have your size, you can’t beat the prices!

These guys are playing a ring toss game.  This game is very difficult to win anything but there are no lack of people trying.

One of the ice cream and soft drink trucks that you find in the night market.

Our last shot is of another BB gun game seller.  We’ve now walked through the entire night market, but we’ve only shown you a small percentage of the stuff that’s available.  Hukou has always had really large night markets no matter where they’ve been located throughout the city.  Since I’ve lived here, this is the third location of the night market and it shows no signs of dying out from lack of popularity.

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Oh, we’ve started another series, called “Hukou” for all the articles that take place in Hukou and don’t belong to any other series.