Sham Shui Po, previously discussed here and here is one of Hong Kong’s most characterful (and poorest) neighborhoods; it is a district of flaking tenement buildings, street markets, snake soup sellers and caged people, new immigrants from the mainland and traders from India and the Middle East and wholesalers of costumer jewellery, ribbons, belts and buttons as well as cut price electronics and jade and Chinese medicine.
I went with a Daisuke and a friend last weekend on a shopping expedition to prepare for Daisuke’s upcoming Roman-themed toga party.
My favourite shop was this one, with its colourful plastic accessories. It was located on a street with wig stores, and leathermakers, fried Chinese pastry shops and a shop with a pair of sunbathing iguanas in the window. A kerbside barber shop was cutting hair in an alleyway.
On one corner of wide, sunny Nam Cheong Street is a slum-like encampment of canvas tarpaulins strung from the snaking branches of big tropical trees. This is the Sham Shui Po fabric market, a rabbit warren of rolls of textiles, cooled only creaky old whirling fans.
The last stop, a quick taxi-hop away, was to shop for a Roman-style laurel wreath. We visited the flower market at Prince Edward, and a bizarre four storey department store of plastic plants called “Brighten Floral Art”.
