Gepps Cross Market... A Cold Way To Start A Winters Sunday

Sunday is a day when many people (including myself) love to have a slow, relaxing (lazy) day... especially come winter time. Now Adelaide's winters aren't that bad. There's no snow. No blizzards. Not even a half decent frost. But last weekend was a challenge for our family. Up and out the door by 8am to go grocery shopping. On a Sunday.

For those that don't know, Adelaide's shopping regulations mean that shops generally open after 11am. But then again, we weren't going to a normal shop. It's the Gepps Cross Treasure Market... about 11km north of  the city, in the Wallis Mainline Drive-In Theatre. Yes - that's right, there are such things as Drive-In Theatres still around - though this is the only one still operating in Adelaide.

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T-chan's Japanese friends had for some time been telling T-chan about the wonders of Gepps Cross Markets... and for a long time we'd been nodding our heads (somewhat patronizingly) saying yes, doesn't it sounds wonderful. Fresh vegetables and so cheap. It must be fantastic, I'm sure. But still, we pretty well persisted with the whole buying at the SUPERmarket. It was, after all, super. Then T-chan (who is a notorious late waker) decided one week to try it out. And, when she came back it was like she'd joined a cult. It is cheap, and is good value! Why have we shopped at supermarkets all this time?!?!?!

Now the Gepps Cross Treasure Markets opens at 7am (the sellers get there from 5am, even in winter)... and by about 8am you can still get a park (try across Pt Wakefield Rd, at the auto sellers). The sellers are a combination of growers and retailers looking for an extra market outlet. And yes - it's at least 50% cheaper than supermarkets on a lot of stuff. And yes - I'd say it was better value than Adelaide's Central Market which is so very popular, and which I posted about recently. By the way - you often see a line up of cars up to 200m long waiting to get in to the site around 10-11 am... the dis-advantage of an late morning arrival.

There are lots of stalls - and I mean LOTS. I'd estimate at least 50 - 70 different food stalls - and that's just the fruit and veg! Now for buyers, it costs $1.50 per person to enter (hmm - that seems a little strange to me... but still you make that up pretty quickly).

The interesting thing is working out where to buy from - there's so many sellers that finding out where to buy... but that only takes a few times to work out. Now the upside is the variety and competition that drives down prices. The downside is that the markets are a whole lot less regulated. That also means that quality can be hit and miss.

Now I would have assumed that a produce market would also mean that the produce is grown locally. Wrong. There's every chance that you'll find cheap transported or dare I mention it, imported, fruit and veg here, so be aware. As an example, we found a lot of rock melons for sale, very cheap. In the middle of winter? In Adelaide? I'm pretty sure that they've either come from up north (in Queensland) or even further up north.... Still there were a lot of citrus and apples around, and I'm reasonably confident in them... I think.

And then there's a different sort of produce... egss. Now free range eggs in the super market normally cost around $5+ for a dozen. How about $5 for 30 free range eggs. That's not too bad a bargain... is it? Of course, the whole weight of responsibility is on you as a buyer to be happy that you believe the seller's claims... and I suspect that you've got next to no chance of getting a refund if you find the quality's not good (this is strictly a cash enonomy here).

As an example of the differences, when I was taking photos I was told by one of the 'staff' that I couldn't photograph in the markets. Huh?... I checked with someone else, and was told that the stall owners don't like it? What, don't like free advertising? Something's not quite right here....

Indeed, when I knew this market before, it went by the name of 'trash and treasure market' - an interesting way of describing a flea market (which is itself an lovely english term). And yes, there's still an element of that in the Gepps Cross markets today... and you will find both semi-commercial (imported?) goods and also the more home-sourced goods at this end of the market. The sort of area that may not want to be photographed (for good reason). Still, I have to admit that part of me wants to argue the point... something along the lines that it's a free world, and about god-given rights to blog (and hence photograph) about whatever I want... etc etc blah blah blehhhhhh. At the end of the day - it's private property, and if they wanna miss out on free advertising - who am I to stand in their way?

At the end of the day - it was quite amazing to get L-kun up and shopping at 8 in the morning (and yes - even though T-chan's been a incorrigible sleep-in-er, she's pretty good come Sunday mornings when it's time to go to the market). I'm not sure that I'll be joining her too often though... as it turns out, I like my lazy Sunday mornings....

As for us - we still do a bit of shopping at the supermarket (as we're habitual impulse cookers - eating what we want, when we want - which tends to make us look for ingredients at least 2-4 times a week). But it's starting to become part of our life.

Chinatown... A Jewel of Adelaide That Almost Wasn't

Adelaide has a reasonable asian community, although this is the most un-asian city of all of Australia, with only about 6-7% of the population identifying themselves as asian in the 2006 census. Approximately, 60,000 people identified their parents from coming from an asian country. As such, it's doubly important that Adelaide have a focal centre for asian culture, and Chinatown and the annual OzAsia Festival are two important parts of that.

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There are two entrances, straddling Moonta Street, and Chinatown covers a couple of blocks of asian grocery shops, restaurants/food courts, and assorted businesses with an asian feel. Gouger Street, apart form having a number of great restaurants, also has a good number of Chinese/Asian restaurants (we might review a few later on).

Actually, the fact that there are any chinatown's in Australia should not be taken for granted. In the Restriction to Immigration Act of 1901, known colloquially as the White Australia Policy, limited the ability of migrants to work in Australia, and indeed for non-white people to immigrate to Australia. Actually to be fair, it wasn't a White Australia Policy - but rather a European Australia Policy... which stated that a prohibited immigrant included... 

(a) "Any person who when asked to do so by an officer fails to write out at dictation and sign in the presence of the officer a passage of fifty words in length in an European language directed by the officer"

That's not to say that non-Europeans were the only ones to be forbidden immigrant status. The 1901 Bill also excluded:

(b) "any person likely...to become a charge upon the public or upon any

public or charitable institution"

(c) "any idiot or insane person"

(d) "any person suffering from an infectious or contagious disease of a loathsome or dangerous character"

(e) "any person who has within three years been convicted of an offence"

(f) "any prostitute or person living on the prostitution of others" 

(g) "any persons under a contract or agreement to perform manual labour within the Commonwealth", where this exempted Pacific Islanders amongst a select set of people.

The reality is that the immigration officer could ask the prospective immigrant to dictate in any of the European languages, almost guaranteeing the ability to exclude unwanted immigrants (non-Europeans) from entering Australia.

Thankfully, the dictation test was removed - but it took until 1958 to do so!... and another 16 years before the White Australia Policy was gone for good.

So, apparently we weren't racist, just linguistically biased (as well as discriminating against the lowly, the idiots, diseased (or loathsome?), prostitutes or any manual labourers! Actually the first Chinese labourers came to Adelaide from Singapore in the 1840's, however, immigration of Chinese into South Australia was often a way of avoiding the immigration restrictions into the Victorian goldfields.

The Chinatown that we now know didn't really evolve until the 1970's and 80's, with the steady influx of Vietnamese migrants and refugees, escaping the war in Vietnam. The central element of Chinatown is Moonta Street, perhaps most recognizable for the two Paifang (Chinese-style archways) on both the southern and northern sides, which were donated by the Adelaide Council and Chinese government.

And of course, it wouldn't be a Chinatown without some Chinese Lion guardians...

And of course, there's other sorts to be found in Chinatown... and we bumped into S-kun at one of the shops... did I mention that they were offering free face-painting to children? Unfortunately, L-kun doesn't like face-painting... so he got an owl painted on his hand. Year of the Tiger was last year, this is Year of the Rabbit... but rabbits don't make for such impressive face-painting.

S-kun gets read to roar

Since then, there's been a slow growth of Asian migration into Adelaide, and a burgeoning of asian shops within the city, which generally cover both asian (and non-asian) vegetables, but particularly asian ingredients from all over. Nowadays, we can get a large number of ingredients from asia - including from Japan.

Actually, Chinatown sits at the western end of the Central Market (previous post). There is only one specific Japanese grocery store, known as Little Tokyo, which sits on the eastern side of Central Market (next to the Hilton Hotel). This is a small, but nice, shop that has a good range of Japanese ingredients.

 If you're Japanese, you might find it hard to pay the mark-up from Japanese prices, but that's the realities of a small Japanese community in Adelaide. You can also find a fair few of these ingredients in the Chinese supermarkets in Chinatown, so shopping around is also recommended. Little Tokyo also has a range of cooking utensils and dishes, plus a small range of other household and arts/crats goods.

On a related area, one of the breadshops that we definitely recommend is Breadtop, which is on Grote Street, next to Chinatown. There's lots of asian, including Japanese-style, breads and pastry's here, and they're relatively cheap too. They also do cakes, but we've not purchased any from here.

My favourite, melon pan, can also be purchased here... I was introduced to melon pan (a rockmelon flavoured bread) back in my first trip to Japan in 2003, and have been a devoted fan ever since. In case you didn't know, they're the two from the left on the bottom shelf (the cream-coloured ones are the ones I'm familiar with in Japan). They light, yummy, and very convenient when you're grabbing a bite to eat from a combini (convenience store) in Japan. Still, in Japan, there's soooo many yummy and convenient foods available.

I definitely recommend checking out both Little Tokyo and BreadTop... and next time your in and around Chinatown, it's good to reflect that Australia up until relatively recently had very strict immigration aimed almost entirely to prevent the sort of multi-culturalism that we enjoy, and indeed cherish today. It's only through such reflection that we can ensure that these sorts of things don't happen again.

Adelaide Central Market...Fruit, Vegetables, Noise and Nibbles

We were in the city last saturday morning, and made use of the time by checking out Adelaide's Central Market. This is an Adelaide institution - having been around in one form or another for around140 years. It may have started off servicing the relatively small central city of Adelaide - however nowadays it provides a very important focal point to the whole of Adelaide.

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There's plenty of fresh fruit and vegetable stores to buy cheap produce in... although not all of it is locally produced... but the veg is always fresh, and come the end of the trading day, you can always pick up an even bigger bargain.

Not only is it a great place to buy  fresh fruit and vegetables, but also any number of delicatessan and continental goods.

There's cheeses, and coffees, organic produce and meats of every description.

And the good thing is that unlike the local supermarkets you can talk to the people that really know their products.

Hmmm... I love mettwurst, a german-style sausage... yumm-o! I quickly got T-chan into mettwursts too... as a way of educating her on South Australia's strong German heritage.

And if you're looking for variety, there's always a lot to choose from, if you know what you're after. I love olives, but don't even pretend to know all the different varieties of flavours. T-chan however is not an olive person. That's always a good thing when it comes to eating pizza as I automatically score all of her olives as well.

And there are some really nice small stalls (in fact there's 200+  stalls in all)... and who can resist a fountain of chocolate? Especially two of them. There's lots of nice delicacies, and quite a few nice cafe's or eateries around the market to grab a coffee or a bite to eat.

Fresh fish is a selling point in the market - though don't expect a cheap price. At least this is one place where you can buy sashimi quality fish in the city. I wouldn't call Adelaide a seafood city, but you can get a decent range of fish.

The Central Market has a number of different associated areas, including a Supermarket (strangely enough), several small arcades, a hotel (pub), and the Market Plaza which joins the Central Market with Chinatown. Of course, none of these things are unique to Adelaide (and I always think of Queen Victoria Markets in Melbourne as the best), but it's a good place to shop; though it's a bit of a struggle with small children given the large number of people.

The market originally began in 1869, with the red-brick facade dating back to 1900. There were two markets in the city, with the East End Markets being another important element to city life. The Central Market remains the only functioning market in Adelaide City (but I might post about some of the other markets around the city later on).

The market is open every day except Sundays and mondays, and only partially open on wednesdays. Other than that, the markets generally open early till 5:30. On Friday's it's open till 9, but on Saturdays it closes at 3pm (2-3 is a good time for bargain hunting).

And the other good thing about the market is that it sits on Gouger St (on the southern side), one of the great food streets of Adelaide, if not Australia! (ok... that sounds a little parochial).

Christmas in Adelaide's Rundle Mall...

Adelaide - as I've mentioned, doesn't really have a huge "christmasy" feel to it... apart from a few obvious (and some might suggest overly ostentatious) trappings. Of course, for a 3 yo, it's all good stuff. And the one thing that they've done reasonably well this year is to provide some free entertainment for the kids in our main shopping area in the city, known as Rundle Mall. Ok... is it really hitting the Christmas message? No. Is it fun for kids? Yes. 

L-kun had a ball riding the tea-cups with Daddy and Mummy... hey, Mummy... smile for that camera! ?;-)

Almost a world exclusive.

Any way, it's not quite the Christmas look and feel that you might expect (especially from the Northern Hemisphere)... but the weather in December is normally a warm 30+ degrees, with a few milder days thrown in. This year has been strange... most of the days have been in the low 20's, with lots of rain and lots of wind. The weekend for example was a horrible, sometimes sunny, sometimes bucketing down with rain. Supposedly, the weather will turn around and we'll get 34 degC for Christmas. I didn't think I'd ever say this, but I am hoping for a hot Christmas this year!

Apart from a few concessions to shade in Rundle Mall, Adelaide's shopping areas are not really geared up for wintery weather. Unlike the huge underground malls in Sapporo, T-chan's home. But there's something also pleasant about an open mall. It's a civilised way of living - if not that convenient.

Still - you make the most of what you've got... L-kun was sooo happy to see the Rock'n'Tug boat... and we've long since discovered that these things make for great motivational tools... "L-kun, if you behave we can go for a ride on the tug-boat....".  I guess we shouldn't be surprised that children learn to be manipulative from an early age... they have good (and persistent) teachers.

So with only a few days before Christmas, I guess I should get into the spirit already... And wish you all a Merry Christmas, and a very relaxing Boxing Day to you too Santa-san!

PS - One final note - can anyone seriously look at this and not think of the marshmallow man from the movie Ghostbusters? Or is it just me?

PPS - And for all those that know about Adelaide, you might now know where exactly the Mall's Balls came from.... Christmas baubles of course. What did you think I meant?...