My grandma’s apartment is in Kowloon City, a very old area of Kowloon, characterized by dirty buildings and slummy areas. There’s so much character here. It seems like every shop has a story, and every street a history. My dad told me that since it’s so hard to find parking, some restaurants have a valet park your car for you if you go in.
Since it’s a long-established area, there’s pretty much everything you need within a couple blocks, or a few minutes walk. This includes:
- fruit stands
- car dealership
- restaurants of many ethnicities
- Chinese medicine shops
- snack and pastry shops
- a toy shop
- a modern shopping mall
- butchers
- a famous park
- a shopping mall
- electronics and appliance stores
- magazine stands
- grocery stores
- dentist
- scrap metal stores
- coffin shop
- tire shop
One of Hong Kong’s famous real estate agents said that living in such high density is a habit, and that Hong Kongers could expand outward (instead of upward) if they wanted to. I can understand why this is true, because everything is so close and convenient. When you live in the middle of all this, you really feel like you’re part of the city’s pulse.
Err.. Hongkies?
Yeah, Singaporeans and Malaysians call Hong Kongers Hongkies. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be derogatory or out of affection. Hong Kong and Singapore have so much in common.
That’s funny because a pejorative term for white people is “honkies”, which sounds exactly the same.
A coffin shop!?!. I would have liked to see how different THAT would be there.
The coffins were a soft yellow, with accents of other bright colours. It was definitely different.