Touring Middle East 17: Art Walk on Sabbath Day

The taxi driver seems baffled when we asked him to take us to the Mahane Yehuda Market in the afternoon - "you know everything is closed on the last day of Sukkot, right?". Of course little did we know he literally meant just that. When we were dropped off at our destination, we found ourselves standing on an empty street, with absolutely NONE of the shops - Jews or non-Jews - were open for business.

Top Morning Market? What?

One place we sorta regret of making a detour for was the Yobuko Morning Market (呼子の朝市) at the northern tip of Saga Prefecture. According to the guidebook, it's one of the "Top 3 Morning Markets" in Japan with street vendors lining up the entire block selling seafood and other fresh or prepared food produce, with many literally just unloaded off the fishing boat onto the dork at the port every morning. So we decided to take a look before we head down to Arita in the south.

Restaurant Week at Town

Our past experiences with Restaurant Week in Hong Kong were a bit mixed. While some were amazing, offered us excellent food and showcased the best they could offer, some were just happy to lure you in then gave you okay dishes with okay ingredients, not expecting you would ever return again. But last Friday we were at Chef Bryan Nagao's Town restaurant in Causeway Bay taking advantage of this year's Restaurant Week promotion and had a pretty good meal there.