Crazy Lion

They maybe the only reggae band in Hong Kong! Later, they will share with us about their music and lyrics. Stay tuned!

Eight treasures set lunch

From Tai Hing Roast Restaurant, which has branches all over Hong Kong. This one was snapped and eaten on Tung Choi Street (aka Goldfish Street) north of Mongkok Road. The eight treasures are roast pork, BBQ pork, pig knuckle, red sausage, squid, soya chicken, roast goose and a salted egg.

Bye bye, pain!

Ads on the first floor of a building on the corner of Sai Yee Street and Mongkok Road. On the left, choose the sex of your baby. On the right, say bye bye to pain. Behind...?

Red train

This fine red train came all the way from China to our favourite Mongkok toy shop, pictured below. Go right to the back of the shop and you'll find lots of replica tin toys just like this. The shop is on Bute Street near the corner of Sai Yee Street, or under the escalator that goes up to Mongkok East MTR. I guess it has a name, but you wouldn't be able to see it would you?

Grover in Hong Kong

Not satisfied with looking like it is made of green Lego bricks, this Bossini clothing store on Sai Yeung Choi Street, Mongkok, is brightening itself up with Sesame Street characters. Grover says, 'Hi, Hong Kong!'

Two good friends

And before the shopping spree we had lunch at the 'Very Good Restaurant' on Soy Street. This is what is known as a cha chaan teng, a cheap restaurant that sells all kinds of Chinese and Western dishes and a few that have got mixed up along the way. Actually, there are a few 'Very Good Restaurants' around town, but this is a favourite because we like to go upstairs and be reminded of the 71/2th floor in Being John Malkowich. Below are a couple of Hong Kong pop food icons sharing a laugh with the chopsticks. On the left is a glass of iced lemon coffee and on the right a glass of yin yeung - tea mixed with coffee or maybe coffee mixed with tea.

I have been reading a couple of academic papers by DrJoolz where she mentions how digital cameras and Flickr are changing people's lives in a way that they carry cameras around with them everywhere and photograph everything they do. I was reminded that here in Hong Kong taking a photo of your lunch or dinner before you eat it has become quite the thing to do. And sure enough, just after we'd finished our photo session, the young couple next to us pulled out their cameras and started snapping their congee and noodles too.

Shopping spree

After Sino Centre, CTMA Centre is my favourite Mongkok mall - especially the top floor and two basement floors which are jammed with small shops selling all kinds of wierd and wonderful toy figures. You'll find it on Sai Yeung Choi South St near the junction with Dundas Street. After a heavy-drinking New Year's Eve, we felt like doing absolutely nothing at all except to go on a meaningless shopping spree. Below is a group shot of some of the things we bought - a set of Evangelion figures, a wind-up hedgehog, a pig from Monster Hunter, and a fisheye 'jelly lens'. The jelly lens cost only HK$35 and I suppose that's why my photo of the mall didn't turn out so good.

Sino Centre

This is a blog about Hong Kong popular culture, so I'll start with my favourite mall for all things Hong Kong pop. This is Sino Centre, on Nathan Road between Yau Ma Tei and Mongkok, where we spent an hour or two earlier this Sunday lunchtime. Note that the photo is taken from outside on the opposite side of the road. If you take photos inside you are likely to come out without your camera, or maybe the hand that was holding it as well. It's that kind of mall. This is not a computer mall, by the way. There are six floors of tiny shops selling DVDs, CD's, figurines, video games, model cars, Japanese comics, and so on. I go for the specialist CD shops mostly - there are more than ten of them. I'll post up a few photos of things I have bought there, but for a taster, here is the blurb from the back of a HK$25 DVD of M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening on sale now...

"Everything happened very suddenly, without warning, without symptoms, spreading speed of more people is no way to beware of, almost suddenly, around the major cities in the United States every corner, everywhere filled with strange and frightening atmosphere of deaths. This is a staggering destructive power, and no signs of any reason to follow..... in the end result is what all this happened so rapidly? Complete destruction of human behaviour in the capacity-controlled? Humanity no longer has to avoid danger and harm of instinct, is no longer able to be aware of knife stabbed himself, the fire will be burned to death themselves, water and drown themselves. No ago, and no consequences , so happened, some people say that this is a terrorist attack, some people say is a failure caused by biological experiments, and some may say that this is a terrible than the devil also the weapons, or a kind of lost control of the virus. But even human Cai Butou its route of transmission - water? Or air?"