626 Night Market in Pasadena

626 night market in pasadena first in southern california

Last Saturday I went to the first ever 626 Night Market in Pasadena. The night market was supposed to be similar to the ones that they have in Taiwan called Ye Si (夜市) with lots of delicious foods, games, and things to buy.

626 night market in pasadena first in southern california

The 626 Night Market in Pasadena however was a complete fail. Never in my life have I seen an event fail so tremendously. I think much of it stemmed from underestimating the turn out of the event. They only expected about a 2000 people turn out, but instead got more than three times the amount show up.

Why would you host this event in Pasadena to begin with? Why not have it in one of the more Asian populated areas such as Rowland Heights, Monterey Park, or even Arcadia which was right next to Pasadena? All of the people who lived in Pasadena looked so confused by the massive floods of Asians. You can let a bunch of Asians drive in a small city like Pasadena where there are one-way streets and limited parking. I saw accidents and people running red lights everywhere. Traffic was horrible too, luckily I know the ins and outs of Pasadena.

I heard some other people spent at least an hour looking for parking, while some others didn’t even find parking at all! And most people ended up parking blocks and blocks away. It was almost like being at the Rose Bowl parade but without the organized traffic and law enforcement.

location of the 626 night market

The location of the 626 Night Market was situated between two buildings spanning only one block. Btw, there really want anything special, it was like a typical fair like the Asian American Expo but much worse. It was horribly crowded to the point where you can’t walk around without rubbing shoulders with others around you. Furthermore, it was too crowded to even get a chance to interact with the venues and tents set up. In addition, the wait for food was about 1 hour long!

626 night market crowd

The only thing nice was that I was able to see a lot of old friends at the night market. We all tried to eat dinner at near by restaurants, but most of the wait times were 2-3 hours long. So we ended up going to the next city over.

Sorry I don’t have any delicious photos of food for you from the 626 Night Market. Hopefully next time they are able to plan this event out a little better now that they know there is a large community of Asians supporting the idea of having a night market…

Anyways, now for some pictures of me camera whoring earlier that day in the car.

me me me

more me!

Thanks for reading!
xoxo Sarah

2 Replies to “626 Night Market in Pasadena”

  1. The 626 market was a fail. Are they gonna have more in the future? lol I wish we took photos together.

    1. Sachiko! lolll i heard that it got super duper horrible reviews on yelp. i’m not sure if they are going to have more in the future? i think they were planning on it, but it went so badly.. awww i wish we could have gotten a picture together too. then i’d have a cute picture with you in a maid outfit!!

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