Many tourists come to my little home, and leave after seeing every single thing in the tourist map and being the least impressed, along with a nasty sunburn from wearing khaki shorts and Hawaiian-shirts.

They often miss out on one feature that we have and America doesn't have - a night market.

No, really. Of all markets, this is the oddest one of them all. The pasar malam (Go look up the Wiki.) is a special occurence. One just opened near my grandma's home - today being Saturday - so I popped in there after finishing some serious storyboarding.

Unfortunately, the Wiki leaves out a lot of details that truly makes this unique. Let me tell something to you.

I got a correction tape dispenser - 16 metres of it (or so the label said.) and with a refill - for a dollar. That's... US$0.65 and UK 0.32 pounds (I can't find the pound sign. Drat it.) Way cheaper than the school bookstore, and useable.

The market boasted many many things - so much that a tourist could buy back to hometown, and be a lot cheaper than the supermarket. Even a cane! (The kind for punishment, ya know. But, no one really uses that... right? Oh, they use the back-scratching kind!) Shirts went at $6 (US 3.95), there were household goods going cheaper than that, there was a LOT of food - shark's fin soup at $2 (US 1.32) that had more soup, less fin - and 'instant keychains' where the stallholders saw plastic and polyester, layer it and give you a custom keychain in 5 minutes. There was a palm reader who sang Hokkien karaoke songs (and got a lot of attention), kiddie rides and toys, and I must not forget the array of jeans that were going at $10 (US 6.60). I didn't buy any, though.

The goal of this night market, as one could guess, was to bring goods that were well-affordable to the citizens that lived near the market - and a lot of people were there. A crowd gathered around the palm-reader, the food-stalls (especially the takoyaki stall) had queues and greedy children in shorts and slippers peering at burgers, sausages, kueh (look up Wiki) and ice cream. Housewives grabbed their wallets and purchased replacements of their frying utensils, the little boy's bolster, a few fruits for home, so on and so forth.

But, this doesn't just happen anywhere, right? It takes my pick as a possible tourist destination if anyone came over here - but please don't by the remastered CDs. They may be cheaper than the originals, but their audio quality sucks.

Rant, rant, rant. Rant over.