Chinese New Year Flower Market
Sunday, 7 February 2021 23:14![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elusivekIt's the week before Chinese New Year. Usually, there are flower markets right about this time, and everyone goes to the flower market to "walk the flower market" (行花市).
With the COVID-19 situation, since flower markets will attract A LOT of people, the government in Macau (and in Hong Kong, that I hear) has decided to cancel the flower markets this year.
So... what happened now is... each florist (and non-florist) is hosting their own flower market!
The most popular flower for the Chinese New Year would be the Orchid. I'm trying to think of the Chinese name and if it links up to anything, but I can't think of anything that pops to my mind. And since I'm lazy, here's a handy website explaining each and everything. I wanted to get a very simple orchid that my Sis got last week, so after lunch today, we made a grand tour of visiting all the florists we know of (and those we don't know of).
About my comment above, "each florist and non-florist" is actually a hilarious truth. Let me explain!
So there are the regular florists and/or flower shops/stores/stalls...
Popular Chinese New Year flowers are Orchids, "Chinese Narcissus" (because today I saw in a shop, top left photo to be exact, they had "Western Narcissus"), Peach/Plum Blossoms, Peonies, etc.... You'll see shops seem to only sell these. In fact, I'm kind of sick of seeing orchids, LOL. I wanted a small orchid, but all that were available were HUGE. We went to the store where my Sis got her single stem mini orchid, and they had 1 left, but it wasn't nice and was a bit droopy/bruised, so I gave up on it.
There are some shops that had closed down, but the owner used the space to sell these Chinese New Year flowers too! Here's a supposed Indonesian shop that has closed down, emptied out, but now selling flowers... with the shop signage still being the old one.
Better yet, to bring more shits and giggles, are shops that haven't closed down, are supposed to sell something else, but they've jumped the bandwagon and carved up a space to sell flowers. Like this sportswear store LOL. I laughed so much when I saw this one.
In the end, I did get small-ish orchid (I still thought it a bit too big), but I am re-challenging myself. I killed an orchid last year, I'm going to try and make one live longer this year. I saw on the packaging that it had a blue orchid, but I wonder if it's just an artificially dyed one. Oh, and I also got this beauty! I'll need to confirm the name with the tag later, but by photo recognition, this is a Japanese Quince (Chaenomeles Japonica). Don't know why I'm a bit obsessed with bonsai type plants lately.
I'm posting these photos all out of sequence. Anyway, the remaining few photos are from our grand walking tour in town... I think we walked from 3pm to 6pm, it was a long walk indeed, and by the end of the evening I couldn't go running as I originally planned for today as my knees started to hurt. Anyway, this photo here is to show how random some people can be. This is actually in front of a furniture shop, but the shopkeeper family have decided to... dry their own dried preserved fish on this fence....
Our McDonald's is doing a Hokkaido Strawberry Flavor promotion, I was still pretty full from lunch so didn't get the full Sundae or the McFlurry, instead just a twist cone. Typical ice cream flavor of fake-strawberry... LOL
I actually had been thinking, if I am to buy a new car, I'd choose the Hustler, but in the end, I decided that nah, let's keep the current car. BUT HEY! Look at this car we came across today! It's a Yellow Hustler, and it's PIKACHU! It's even got the tail! I didn't peek inside though, so I'm not sure if this is a themed car or the owner just found the yellow a good fit to stick those ears and tails to it. But I have to say it's cute!
Random shots along the "San Ma Lou" (新馬路) (lit. "New Street"). Actually this street has a proper Portuguese name (Avenida Almeida Ribeiro, I think), but everyone, including local non-Chinese speakers would just call this street San Ma Lou. I suppose this is one of the first actually-built streets in Macau, so even though the street and the buildings around it are already pretty old, the street is still called "New Street".
This street, although the window shades are green in color you see now, were painted red at one point in time. In Cantonese, this street was called the "Red Window Street" 紅窗門 and it was the red light district (way before my time). I heard the ladies would look out the windows from above and try to lure their clients in. I also heard that this street ORIGINALLY had green window shades, but then turned red (for whatever reason), and now they have reverted to the original green. Anyway, it is by this reason (being the red light district) it shouldn't be a surprise that this street is called Rua de Felicidade (Felicity street).
And a final photo of my flowers.... hm.... the orchid actually doesn't look good here.... yikes! Let me think about it and see how to rearrange it.
With the COVID-19 situation, since flower markets will attract A LOT of people, the government in Macau (and in Hong Kong, that I hear) has decided to cancel the flower markets this year.
So... what happened now is... each florist (and non-florist) is hosting their own flower market!
The most popular flower for the Chinese New Year would be the Orchid. I'm trying to think of the Chinese name and if it links up to anything, but I can't think of anything that pops to my mind. And since I'm lazy, here's a handy website explaining each and everything. I wanted to get a very simple orchid that my Sis got last week, so after lunch today, we made a grand tour of visiting all the florists we know of (and those we don't know of).
About my comment above, "each florist and non-florist" is actually a hilarious truth. Let me explain!
So there are the regular florists and/or flower shops/stores/stalls...
Popular Chinese New Year flowers are Orchids, "Chinese Narcissus" (because today I saw in a shop, top left photo to be exact, they had "Western Narcissus"), Peach/Plum Blossoms, Peonies, etc.... You'll see shops seem to only sell these. In fact, I'm kind of sick of seeing orchids, LOL. I wanted a small orchid, but all that were available were HUGE. We went to the store where my Sis got her single stem mini orchid, and they had 1 left, but it wasn't nice and was a bit droopy/bruised, so I gave up on it.
There are some shops that had closed down, but the owner used the space to sell these Chinese New Year flowers too! Here's a supposed Indonesian shop that has closed down, emptied out, but now selling flowers... with the shop signage still being the old one.
Better yet, to bring more shits and giggles, are shops that haven't closed down, are supposed to sell something else, but they've jumped the bandwagon and carved up a space to sell flowers. Like this sportswear store LOL. I laughed so much when I saw this one.
In the end, I did get small-ish orchid (I still thought it a bit too big), but I am re-challenging myself. I killed an orchid last year, I'm going to try and make one live longer this year. I saw on the packaging that it had a blue orchid, but I wonder if it's just an artificially dyed one. Oh, and I also got this beauty! I'll need to confirm the name with the tag later, but by photo recognition, this is a Japanese Quince (Chaenomeles Japonica). Don't know why I'm a bit obsessed with bonsai type plants lately.
I'm posting these photos all out of sequence. Anyway, the remaining few photos are from our grand walking tour in town... I think we walked from 3pm to 6pm, it was a long walk indeed, and by the end of the evening I couldn't go running as I originally planned for today as my knees started to hurt. Anyway, this photo here is to show how random some people can be. This is actually in front of a furniture shop, but the shopkeeper family have decided to... dry their own dried preserved fish on this fence....
Our McDonald's is doing a Hokkaido Strawberry Flavor promotion, I was still pretty full from lunch so didn't get the full Sundae or the McFlurry, instead just a twist cone. Typical ice cream flavor of fake-strawberry... LOL
I actually had been thinking, if I am to buy a new car, I'd choose the Hustler, but in the end, I decided that nah, let's keep the current car. BUT HEY! Look at this car we came across today! It's a Yellow Hustler, and it's PIKACHU! It's even got the tail! I didn't peek inside though, so I'm not sure if this is a themed car or the owner just found the yellow a good fit to stick those ears and tails to it. But I have to say it's cute!
Random shots along the "San Ma Lou" (新馬路) (lit. "New Street"). Actually this street has a proper Portuguese name (Avenida Almeida Ribeiro, I think), but everyone, including local non-Chinese speakers would just call this street San Ma Lou. I suppose this is one of the first actually-built streets in Macau, so even though the street and the buildings around it are already pretty old, the street is still called "New Street".
This street, although the window shades are green in color you see now, were painted red at one point in time. In Cantonese, this street was called the "Red Window Street" 紅窗門 and it was the red light district (way before my time). I heard the ladies would look out the windows from above and try to lure their clients in. I also heard that this street ORIGINALLY had green window shades, but then turned red (for whatever reason), and now they have reverted to the original green. Anyway, it is by this reason (being the red light district) it shouldn't be a surprise that this street is called Rua de Felicidade (Felicity street).
And a final photo of my flowers.... hm.... the orchid actually doesn't look good here.... yikes! Let me think about it and see how to rearrange it.
