This morning I woke up exceptionally early (7am) to go to a supposedly great flea market (an hour away) with a small group of grad students . I think everyone had such high expectations. It didn’t help that although it was very bright and sunny, it was also a very cold morning. The flea market turned out to be a very poor “pasar malam” and disappointed everyone. At least pasar malam-s have more food items. The flea market had many fake purses and handbags; for example, “Pagoda” handbags instead of Prada. There’s just something so wrong about using a Pagoda handbag; that brand brings to my mind very strong mental pictures of Pagoda singlets and Pagoda groundnuts! Nope, no pagoda handbags for me. If I am to spend $10-30 on a handbag, I’d rather buy not-so-well-known bags from a retail store.

I ended up buying a pot of 6 purple hyacinths ($3; for the living room) and 2 avocados ($2) from the “great” flea market. I should have slept in instead.

It seems TM brought along with him the strongest Spring storm-system in years. Besides heavy rain, or even wet snow, in the whole mid-Atlantic and New England area for the entire day, NYC is under severe weather alert (coastal flooding) tomorrow, so this Sunday’s NYC tour has been postponed to maybe Wednesday.