Chinatown Market, Chinatown

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Hundreds of items line the walls of this typical Chinatown store. Everything from dried mushrooms to rice has a home and is avaliable for customers to buy.

One of the most interesting things to do in Vancouver's Chinatown is to peruse up and down the streets that function as its Market. Every imaginable spice, food, toy and article of clothing can be found in these large stores (or cramped, depending on the space) many of these stores have interesting and bizarre items, such as dried lizards on sticks, edible eels and even kimonos for adventurous shoppers.

MARKET:

The Chinatown Market composing of around five blocks of stores is open year round and offers thousands of items.

Shops specialize in a range of items from butchers with precooked duck, turkey and chicken in the store fronts as well as chicken legs for soup; seafood shops with turtles, crabs, oysters, eels and fish of all kinds ready to be bought, live or dead; stock shops filled to the roof with every imaginable spice, rice, dried vegetable mushroom or fruit and even delicacies such as dried lizard on a stick; desert shops offer green tea cookies and sweet breads; bargain shops offer sandals, lanterns, fans and chopsticks at bargain prices; and the flea markets provide a varied selection of toys, movies, jewellery and clothing.

OUTDOOR CHINATOWN MARKET (SUMMER):

One of the most anticipated summer events in Chinatown, the Outdoor Market opens in mid-May and goes to the end of September on weekend nights (Fridays through Sundays).

The market is located from Keefer Street and Main Street and takes place from 6:30pm to 11:00pm.

Consisting of an open-air night market with excellent deals on clothing, foodstuffs and other interesting items and many small inexpensive restaurants, the market is a great multicultural experience.

Market-goers can also pay a visit to the nearby Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden as well as the Chinese Cultural Centre Museum which hosts many activities.