Waking up early has taken a toll on my Mom, dear me, she’s been waking up automatically at 6am daily which means, by default, I have to be up by 7:30am to welcome the day! We’ve planned to go to Old Biscuit Mill for about two weeks now; it’s an old mill (flour?) with warehouse-like space that’s converted to a Saturday market, filled with yummy food, artisan bread/cheese/arts & crafts, and some very expensive furniture…
Starting our day of adventure, we stopped a taxi off the road to get into town. Note: there are 2 types of taxis in South Africa. A “taxi” is a mini-van, costs about R5 per ride, and is commonly used by locals to travel short distance. The common misconception in South Africa: taxis are only used by “colored” people and that it is very, very dangerous to ride in one… of course, this is largely due to the legacy of apartheid in South Africa. Most of the “white” folks have a decent job, middle to upper class, and typically owns a car. Whereas the “colored” people were forcibly removed from Cape Town city during the apartheid, into surrounding suburbs in Cape Flat, and many lives in townships… Thus, these residents are much more reliant on public transportation.
This was actually our first time taking taxi in Cape Town, we took one last weekend at Simonstown as well, and both time have been very pleasant! Everyone in the taxi was friendly, and slightly surprised to see two Asian women jumping aboard ;) We were trying to make it to Old Biscuit Mill, and were told that we had to transfer to a larger city bus near the bus terminal. One of the ladies was incredible and offered to show us where/ which bus to take! So we made it to the market within 30mins… on our very first bus adventure!
Once we arrived at Old Biscuit Mill, we were surprised by how Ëuropean the market was! You rarely saw anyone with different skin color, unless they worked one of the stores… After walking around, it was easy to see why. This Saturday market featured mostly artisan, organic stalls with international flavors such as Spanish paella, Dutch poffertjes, smoked snoek and more. The dishes used fresh ingredients and tasted amazing, we even found a booth selling roasted mushrooms!
After shopping & eating, we resolved happily to our food coma. My mom appeared to have enjoyed her first sangria, and we were two happy bunnies. Having the Observatory Festival this weekend, I hear it officially marks the beginning of Cape Town summer! We took a cab (metered private taxi) and headed to Obs with our full bellies.
Here, we found a really cool car covered in graffiti arts, tassels on the bottom, wire ninjas on the hood… you name it! The artist was superb and pulled out an entire costume when my mom requested to take a photo together, he’s an ex-magician! We then found Lee working the currywors booth across the road! It’s great to bump into more and more Couchsurfers all over the city now~ Patrick was rocking his Observatory Neighborhood Watch vest too!
Chilling out on the grass, there was an A cappella choir singing on stage. With the sun burning down and the smoked snoek in our bag, we decided to call it a day and head home~ This was just what I needed, to wind down from a crazy week… Can’t believe my mom’s actually leaving in two weeks, it’s gonna be weird cooking my own food again…
