Another weekend, another excursion. Some tourism is necessary to remind yourself that Johannesburg is not only leafy green suburbs connected by winding highways leading inevitably to shopping malls. Or is it?

One Sunday we chose to go to the Rosebank rooftop market located on the roof of, well, a shopping mall. However, all the guides mention Rosebank so it seemed like a good destination, and I love markets.

This one was interesting, and one of the most interesting things, at least initially, was the mixed attendance. In the malls you do see black people, white people and quite a few Indian people but at the Rosebank market I definitely got the impression that the races interacted with each other a bit more. I also saw several Chinese people, which was a first here!

The merchandise was a little disappointing: lots and lots of stereotypically African wooden decorations and beaded animals, all ready for the tourists (although I’m not sure how many tourists there are here). There was also an assortment of hippy clothes and stalls of painted ostrich eggs and some food places and, irritatingly, a stall selling the exact same ponchos I could have bought in Mexico. Sometimes I hate the globalization of stuff. You travel the world and buy things to remind you of a place only to find them again in your hometown. It makes you suspect that absolutely everything is made in China.

Still, it was fun walking around the market, using my legs for once, and people watching!