In Auckland, there's a night market running across neighbourhoods every single day of the week. For us in Mairangi Bay, Tuesday's Albany Night Market is the closest, so often Tuesday becomes a Night Market day.
The market opens at five, but picks up around six. We usually leave home around half past.
By the time we arrive, the first thing we always do is a full lap — no buying yet, just looking. What's new tonight? What's calling? The kids scan for desserts immediately and with great seriousness, while the adults try to figure out a dinner plan.
North Shore has a large Asian community, and the food stalls reflect that. We never skip the skewers and dumplings — the best value on the strip. Sometimes a steak catches our eye, or noodles in chilli oil. Other nights we circle back to the usuals. Produce stalls, kids selling old toys, rows of knock-off goods that are surprisingly entertaining. Kkwabaegi, hot dogs, smoothies also hold our steps.
Tanghulu is always for the last round. For the kids, it's a small comfort — familiar flavours in an unfamiliar country. Dubai chocolate and strawberry-loaded desserts, fairy floss in every colour, and tanghulu, the love of their childhood. For them, it's a little piece of Seoul tucked into a Tuesday in Auckland.By eight, we pick up combo meals and dumplings to bring home. The kids, bellies full, carry the evening home with happy faces, while the adults crack a beer alongside the takeaway.
I think back to the nights at home when a night market would set up along the main road of our apartment complex. Food trucks on both sides, kids running into friends, tanghulu in hand, summer evenings slightly giddy for no reason. Here, something in us settles. Two homes, woven together like warp and weft. The threads aren't so different. And in those moments when this place echoes that one, there's a quiet relief — a sense that we haven't lost after all.
