Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Hong Kong Trip - Part IV

Last post on HK *phew!*

What else did I do in HK besides eat? Shopping, of course! Went to my usual shopping haunts in HK - the Far-East-type shops along Granville Road, Pedder Building for BCBG/Catherine Malandrino/DVF clothes, Ladies' Market (loi yan kai) for all the fake stuff (this time it was Tiffany's!), and lots of random shopping in the Causeway Bay area.

But the best shopping this trip was done in H&M. I've been a big fan of H&M since I first walked into the store at Oxford Street in London over 10 years ago. Most recent trip to H&M was in Barcelona two years ago and still loved it... unfortunately there's no H&M in this region :( So I was really excited when I read in the Life! section of the papers a month ago about H&M opening in HK.

For some photos of the opening of the store in HK, check out this blog.

It was totally crazy in the store even though I was there two weeks after it opened - the queue for the changing room was at its best five persons deep and at its worse fifteen persons deep... which is why many (including me) ended up just finding a mirror and trying clothes in front of it.

And thanks to its great return policy (refund in 30 days with receipt and tags attached), I ended up buying quite a few things which I returned the next day coz it didn't quite fit.

Apparently more H&M stores will be opening in Japan, China and Australia but none in Singapore :(

Hmm... what else did I do in HK?? Oh yes, and I watched rugby too :) Here's a picture of the stadium as proof that I was there -


Watched a few matches on Saturday and was at the stadium most of Sunday. Many upsets including England (winner of the HK7s the last four years) losing to the All Blacks 0-26 in the Cup Quarter-final, Wales beating Argentina 26-19 in the Plate Final... and the most exciting match of the tournament, Samoa was victorious over Fiji 27-22 in the Cup Final after having held them score-less at halftime.

What's really great about the HK7s is the atmosphere - people getting up to dance whenever the music comes on, looking at all the people who turned up in silly costumes (a bunch of guys wore the Borat swimming costume!)... everyone's just having a generally good time.

Here's an example of some of the craziness that takes place at the 7s (my very first embedded video! If you have your speakers on, watch out for auds yelling out "Welcome to Hong Kong!" :) -



If you stare really closely, especially at the bottom of the screen, the little things flying about are plastic jugs being (randomly) thrown. You can even see people ducking to get out of the way of the flying jugs. And THAT is why I haven't sat in the South Stand for years - way too many drunks doing totally crazy things. I normally sit in the West Stand at a safe distance away from the nonsense... but close to enough to watch and laugh at the silliness.

That just about covers all the best things about this trip - the eating, the shopping and the rugby. Should be heading back there again for next year's HK7s barring any unforseen circumstances... Can't wait! :)

2 comments:

Joe Yap said...

Heyyy.. granville.. haven't been to HK in years but I remember liking granville so much that I learnt the cantonese name for it..

Ka Lin Wai Loh Toh.

I think.

Boy that was a long time ago.

By the way, I thought about eating a krispy kreme for you today (one opened up at Melbourne Central and I pretty much pass by it every day)

So let me know when you're craving one and I'll gobble it down on your behalf ;)

Esther said...

Eh, but what do you like about Granville? For me it's got lots of shopping :)

So mean, making me crave fresh krispy kremes! Luckily Gerry will be coming back to Singapore next week... she transits for a day in Bali - and there's a krispy kreme stall there! So I'm expecting some (relatively) fresh ones soon...