Local Markets

Today is Saturday which for us is a free day. My roommates and I woke up around 10 this morning and started showering and getting ready for a busy day. First stop the Old Biscuit Mill. The Old Biscuit Mill is a large open air market with food and craft vendors. When you first walk in you immediately see a crowd of people and as you get closer you realize that they are crowded around tables of all types of food. Cheese, wine, bread, honey, chocolate, caramel are just a few of the many "raw" goods you can purchase. Jack was kind enough to buy our room a loaf of ciabatta bread for dinner, but more on that to come later. As you weave through the crowd of people that includes locals and tourists you begin to see more prepared foods available. There are smoothies, waffles and ice cream, oysters, paninis, crepes all freshly made in front of you. Jack, Sam, Jake, Challis, and I all decide to get paninis from a vendor. They had some sitting out front to show what was available.

Breakfast Panini and Chicken Delight, two of over a dozen options

Jack, Challis, and I all decided on the steak sandwich with taziki sauce, lettuce, tomatoes, and chili sauce, while Sam got the Chicken Delight and Jake went for the Breakfast. We walked back outside where we sat with Courtney and Joanna to eat and happened to meet three girls from the United States. Two were students at USC and one at Vandy and all were studying for the semester at the University of Western Cape. We enjoyed a great lunch and continued to walk around the market seeing interesting sights such as a water sculpture that looked like something da Vinci could have designed.

The basic premiss of the machine is water is pumped into buckets on the far side that get heavy and turn a wheel that in turn makes the hose above the three galvanized buckets back and forth filling them up gradually also. In the end the large galvanized buckets dump back into the pool that is where the pump receives water from.

We soon decided to leave the Old Biscuit Mill and head for the Green Market, a market in downtown Cape Town know for its craft work available and use of bartering skills is key. When you arrive you are overwhelmed with the shops in the market. It is mostly tents set up that are split into quarters and each quarter has a table with items set up on them. These shop owners had everything you could imagine belts, bracelets, T-shirts, keychains, masks, and artwork of all kinds. If you even look at something the shop owner will immediately begin asking you how much you are willing to spend and tell you he will give you a great price. The key is to act uninterested in the things you actually want and barter your way down to a good price. I was able to barter one guy down from R220 to R150 for what I think is a great present for Mom, but don't ask what it is cause its a surprise.

Lego Man made of Coca-Cola crates at the Waterfront

After we left the Green Market we headed to the V&A Waterfront to do some grocery shopping and head back to the apartments. We had a great day at the markets and are counting on another great day on Sunday (now today). Headed to Hillsong Church now and will be sure to let everyone know how it goes.