Local Celebrity Sighting!

My friend with actor Chow Yun-fat at the Tai Po Cooked Market Centre

This morning I woke up at 6.30am to get to Tsim Sha Tsui East for an assignment. A small group of people and I were accompanying a chef to Tai Po Market in the New Territories as he bought some vegetables and seafood; afterwards he would go back to the restaurant to prepare lunch for us to eat.

For me going to Tai Po has memories -- I spent seven years commuting to the Industrial Estate for work, but hardly ever went to the Tai Po market. I only went once to the area to have the best roast goose I have ever had -- unfortunately that place closed so I never went back there again!

Anyway, we arrived around 9.20am and the Tai Po Market is a giant modern and clean complex near the MTR station. On the top floor is the cooked food centre and that's where we had some breakfast. We ate some pork chop buns, deep-fried fish fillet buns, and dim sum.

Chow having a chat with the chef

While we were eating, a woman we were with had a phone call and walked away to take it. She didn't come back for a long time but when she returned, she excitedly said actor Chow Yun-fat walked right by her and waved!

He seems to be everywhere these days -- people have reported sightings of him at 7am in a cha chaan teng in Kowloon City, in Mui Wo, and on the MTR.

One of the organizers of our field trip excitedly went off on a search for him and we told her to come back with him, but a while later she came back alone! She said he was swarmed by fans and she asked him to come by our table. Would he? Did he know how to find us?

Sure enough a few minutes later, a tall man in all black with a baseball cap, sunglasses, black top, shorts and leggings showed up. We were in the midst of getting up when he motioned to us to sit down, not wanting to cause a commotion.

But onlookers were thrilled to see him and huddled around our table. Chow was introduced to the chef -- the actor didn't seem to believe he was one until a name card was produced. Suitably impressed Chow told us to gather round for a wefie.

He didn't like where I was standing and instructed me to stand to his left and I quickly obeyed. Soon he took three pictures, gave back our smartphone and he left as quickly as he came.

We hadn't even gone grocery shopping yet and already had a massive celebrity sighting!

After I posted the picture on social media, it went wild with lots of comments saying "lucky you!" and "so jealous!"

We really were lucky! And we had a really fun excursion and delicious lunch too!

I'm glad to have a fun memory of Tai Po instead of just that one-and-a-half hour commute there and back everyday for seven years!