Any­one who has been down to the water­front this week would have seen a large rusty barge parked in the lagoon and a bunch of scaf­fold­ing and mar­quees going up.  You may well be won­der­ing,  “what the hell is all of this in aid of?”

Well gen­tle read­er, today for one day only, the area around the lagoon and Frank Kitts Park is being trans­formed into a slice of Asia (well about 10 or so slices of Asia) for the South­east Asian Night Mar­ket.  The mar­ket opens with a can­non blast at 4pm and fin­ish­es up at 10pm.

This is only the sec­ond time the mar­ket has been held in Welly, and the big dif­fer­ence is this time they are cook­ing with gas, out­side, live and direct.  Last time it was held in the TSB are­na and lines snaked across Queens Wharf for hours so pre­pare your­self for Cuba Car­ni­val style crush.  Get in amon­st the sights, sounds, smells and not for­get­ting for a sec­ond, the FLAVOURS of a real deal night mar­ket.  Yes, I did just use caps.  I know that is bad man­ners but I have seen the menus on offer and I have to say both “whaaa?” and “nom” in equal mea­sure, which is exact­ly as it should be.

Pro­gramme details and high­lights after the jump:

  • Beer tent sell­ing Beer Chang and Saigon 333
  • Taste sized por­tions of food you would be hard pressed to find on any menus around town
  • Indone­sian pup­petry with game­lan orches­tra
  • Live music and danc­ing on a float­ing stage
  • Faux fire­works
  • Mar­tial Arts demon­stra­tions
  • Nation­al cos­tume parade with lion dancers

Pro­grame and more infor­ma­tion at AsianNZ’s web­site here and here.