San Jose is home to a massive Flea Market, which claims 1500 stalls on Sundays. We went yesterday, to check it out. I had high hopes for this place; I dreamt of walking out with such esoterica as an FM Towns gaming system or maybe unopened boxes of trading cards. Instead, I walked out with only this:
But I skip ahead! More on the above later…
The Flea Market is a mostly-permanent-stalls place where you can go to buy just about anything for relatively cheap. Yes they probably have 1500 stalls, but many of these sell the same old stuff you’d see at flea markets world round, such as clothing, toiletries, kitchen supplies and cheap toys. The ‘garage sellers’ are in their own section, and basically drive up and sell anything they like from tarps on the ground. In theory, this is where true gems may be found. In practice, it’s a lot of tools and, well basically garbage 🙂
As with most places like this, occasionally items unlike anything you’d see in a ‘real’ shop can be found. Cockfighting enthusiast items for instance:
Or pinatas of questionable license:
It was brutally, mercilessly hot at the flea market, and this photo shows the genesis of an illness that gripped me later in the day:
The corndog (and fries) were fine, but glimpse that orange soda there? Well even as the guy who sold it to me apologized for not having mountain dew in stock for a guy wearing a mountain dew t-shirt, a thought had begun in the back of my mind that drinking orange soda in such heat may be a bad idea since it makes me sick even at the best of times. When, a couple of hours later, Bernard got me a second, gigantic, second cup of orange fanta AND I DRUNK IT ALL INSIDE 5 MINUTES, well then at that point the damage was done.
As we left the flea market I felt no small amount of nausea, and upon arriving home I was forced to lie down for a while to combat the rising gorge 🙂
So the flea market – poor drink choices notwithstanding – was a fun trip. But given I was the most enthused, what was funny was how little I spent compared to B & L. I purchased only the one item shown earlier: a solar bobbing head unofficially licensed ultraman knockoff sitting on a crapper. And it only cost me $3.
Bernard came in second, buying two LED watches:
And Lakshmi beat the both of us into the ground with a decent bag of stuff and a beautiful piece of furniture:
There’s a lot of furniture stores at the flea market, and the prices are good and the delivery was quick and free.
Speaking of Bernard & Lakshmi, watch this:
We think Bernard took us to these markets. We bought a few little things. If my memory serves me right Lakshmi bought a handbag.