Exploring Sheung Wan

I guess I'm still in the sharing mood. I don't want to drag out my Hong Kong posts so much that I'd have to keep writing about my experiences two months later well into the semester. Teresa (my now de facto HK tour guide) brought me to Sheung Wan, where she said there were a lot of art galleries and cute cafés. What is this, Brooklyn? Chelsea? I think not. My mum bought an apartment here a good while ago out of convenience (since we live in the what is basically the boonies of Hong Kong) for its proximity to the heart of city without Central/Causeway Bay's price tag. If you said Sheung Wan would become hip or chic back then, I would have laughed in your face. But here I stand, eating my words and corrected.

Though the galleries here are very new, most were well done and well thought out. It was quite pleasant to browse through all of them. I also manage to go visit the world's first stand alone Lomo store here – a place that Teresa used to frequent often. Another successful case of people branching out and exploring new places to open new ventures!

In this post, I happen to use to use a few image rollover so check my blog secret #2 at the end of my post!

Spillovers and Side Effects

Real estate developers usually charge a fortune for valuable retail space in their malls. Thus vendors selling more unconventional wares and merchandise have a hard time covering their high overhead costs. What's a poor shopkeeper to do in such an intensely competitive city? You get creative.

After dinner at a cha chaan teng in Tai Haang, Teresa brought me to Causeway Bay to do a little window shopping. We were so stuffed that we agreed we should try and walk it off. At first, to be honest, I was against going to Causeway Bay. I did not need to go to Sogo, Times Square, the streets near Hysan Place or Hysan Place itself again for the umpteenth time. Where's the fun in window shopping there?  Teresa replied, no we are not going there. But if not there, then where?

When we first approached a rather dilapidated group of buildings near Leighton Centre, I thought we were lost. But she looked confident and walked right ahead. What could she possibly want to find here?! It does not seem quite so scary in the photo, but I seriously thought we could get shanked in there (even though violent crime rate is pretty low in HK). It was then we found BUNKAYA ZAKKATEN (文化屋雜貨店).

Stanley, Hong Kong

After yesterday's grittier post of artist studios in Hong Kong's industrial district of Fo Tan, here's one to show you the more relaxed peaceful side of HK. It's nice to escape the hustle and bustle of the big city. Due to the expensive real estate, most of the land is developed by real estate tycoons to build shopping malls after shopping malls to quickly and easily recoup their investments, even if there are WAY too many in existence already. Worst still, the malls are all filled with the same brands and in many cases, even the same restaurants. Even though it's a cosmopolitan city rich in culture, it's actually hard to find something interesting to see or do, hence our making a trek way out of the way down to the southern tip of the island.

Here you can see what was basically my uniform the whole time I was in HK: basic neutral tee + jeans + sneakers/loafers depending on location/weather/mood + Barbour jacket, which turned out to be perfect for the cool breezy winter weather. 

I'll be sure to follow up later with the a post solely dedicated to the "mall culture" of Hong Kong and the resulting homogeneity of choices because it's an interesting phenomenon that's little seen outside of Asia (where the population density is high and little land is available).

Kowloon Walled City Park

Ever since I entered college, I have travelled less and less frequently to Hong Kong. In part to save money and in part because I have come to detest flying 19 plus hours. It's rather sad only being able to see my parents once a year at most and becoming a stranger in my homeland. On the flip side however, I've become to truly appreciate any opportunity to fly home to HK and, of course, to see my parents (and not take them for granted!). More so, I can look upon and explore HK with fresh eyes with the insatiable curiosity of a tourist imbued with an established understanding (of the language, culture etc.) as a longtime resident beforehand. It's a rather trippy experience as HK is stuck in my mind in the limbo between being home home and completely foreign.

Today I got to be all touristy and visited Kowloon Walled City Park (九龍寨城公園). I don't think I have been here since I was very very young. The history of the place is incredibly fascinating – parts of it dated from Song and the fort as a whole from 17th century Qing – but the walled city was most interesting in the 20th century after it became a legal grey area being neither in control by the Chinese nor the British. I made a point to visit after seeing it appear in the 99% Invisible Podcast. You can read more about it the walled city itself (九龍寨城) and city park here. I find it a shame that I never got to visit since it was torn down around when I was born (early 90s). My dad did manage to go visit in the early 70s and said it was a surprisingly functional (and not as scary as it seems, but then again I am a big wuss) place.