5th DAY: TAIPEI- VISIT TO THE MARKET

Of course, no matter what town or city one visits, a stop by a local market is a must. There was a lot of traffic on the way, not surprising in a large city of today, and a lot of scooters, many more than cars.

A street vendor by the entrance to the market. She is selling mushrooms, those things in the plastic bags are mushrooms

We stopped for a refreshment in a bar, very modern, that sold 18 or 20 varieties of beer. I didn't have any since I can't drink beer.

Here is Maya with Steve and Andrew by the bar

 While looking out the bar window, I heard the chime of an ice cream truck. No, it was not an ice cream truck but a garbage collection truck, that Steve had mentioned.

By the sound of this very annoying music people come out and bring their garbage which is deposited in the truck, apparently sorted for recyclables already by the consumers. According to Steve the garbage is collected daily.

Here you can see people bringing their trash

The market is an example of capitalism at work.

 The market is made up by individuals selling their wares in small stands. People typically think of capitalism as huge companies voraciously capturing markets and selling products monopolistically. But here in this small market we have an example of capitalism. Each of the vendors is in reality an entrepeneur who has put some capital (money) to buy products that he then brings to the market to sell. He is taking a risk that nobody will buy the product that he is selling, or that he will be forced to sell it at a loss. But he is hoping that he will sell and make a profit. He is risking his capital to make a living.

He has to guess on his own what consumers will want to buy. There is no government entity or a big planner deciding what should be brought to the market. The vendor makes all those decisions. True capitalism on a small scale.

Steve decided to have a snack from one of the street vendors.

And here is some of the delicious food, looks like fried bacon but I think is tripe, yummy.

By the way the vendor will cook the food on the spot, to ensure the food is hot and fresh.

Here is a display of octopus

We saw food stand after food stand throughout the market which covers several streets. There is no traffic in those streets, just hordes of people buying food or all other types of junk.

We went  to a place where textile vendors show rheir wares. It was in the second story of a building with many vendors of textiles. It seemed to go forever.

Here I am standing in the Mazu t-shirt that I purchased in Lugang (or Lukang)

And here is another photo, included just for selfish reasons

At closing time, the stand owners cover their section with cloth, of course. And actually there is a curtain track in the ceiling so at closing time they just close the curtain. You can see the curtain track on the ceiling.

Continuing in themarket area, we ran into this stand that was selling stickers, the vendor had a printer to print your name, or any name you wanted on the stickers.

Looking at the sticker designs

And it's night, time to leave the market to go for dinner.

We had dinner at the restaurant in the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi depsrtment store (that's what I think it is). Weird, but the food was excellent, here is Steve and Andrew selecting the food.

And fhe food arrived , and arrived, and arrived...dish after dish after dish. All very well prepared.