To the east of Nathan Road, at the corner of Nelson Street and Fa Yuen Street, a specialist market of a rather different flavour, the Mong Kok Computer Centre, offers some incredible bargain software on CD, though be warned that much of this is pirated and, strictly speaking, illegal - exercise cau- tion when importing such material into your own country. Not far from here is the Goldfish Market, on Fa Yuen Street and Bute Street, where you can find aquaria, corals, exotic fish and even some dubiously exotic breeds of snake, lizard and turtle. A few hundred metres from here in the direction of Mong Kok MTR, just to the north of Prince Edward Road, are two delightful mar- kets, the Flower Market (daily from 10am), in Flower Market Street, and the Bird Garden (daily 7am-8pm), at the eastern end of the same street, where it meets the KCR flyover. The flower market is at its best on Sundays and in the run up to Chinese NewYear, when many people come to buy narcissi, orange trees and plum blossom to decorate their apartments in order to bring good luck. In 1997, the bird market moved from some rather fetid lanes off Nathan Road in Mong Kok to its purpose built site here. Over seventy songbird stalls are set in a Chinese-style garden, with trees, seats and elegant carved marble panels showing birds in the wild. As well as the hundreds of birds on sale here, along with their intricately designed bamboo cages, there are also live crickets -food for the birds. Many local men bring their own songbirds here for an air ing, and the place gives a real glimpse into a traditional area of Chinese life which is spiritually a thousand miles from Tsim Sba Tsui.
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