Outlets & Bargains

Hong Kong Island

We hit Harbour Plaza in Ap Liu Chiu , which is only reached by taking a Taxi (which will cost around 12-15AUD) to visit the Lane Crawford and Joyce Warehouses. If you’re not overly keen on either of these, its probably not worth the visit to Ap Lei Chua since the rest of the plaza is filled with home wares stores, which looked interesting but are not exactly suitcase friendly.

Lane Crawford was pretty decent – imagine a warehouse full of racks of clothes willy nilly, then add high end designer labels to those clothes. Notable finds were Cheap Monday Jeans for $45AUD,  a Juicy Dress I’ve been eyeing off for months (alas, too small) and what was officially crowned the Bargain Of the Trip – Missoni Heels for $85AUD (right). I thought our poor little shopper hearts were going to pass out from excitement at this point. There are heaps of clothes here and a fairly decent selection of shoes. The bags, whilst nice, were still fairly pricey – e.g. Canvas Chloe Edith’s for $1500AUD, Chloe Bay Bags also $1500 and Marc Jacobs Quilted Totes (kinda like the Stam Quilting) for $1000AUD. They also had Gryson Bags, Chloe Paddington Wallets.

The Joyce Warehouse was, in my view, totally average and not worth a visit. The maximum discount I saw was 50% off the full price, and its quite small compared to Lane Crawford. One thing you must do if you visit Harbour Plaza is go and visit the Sift Patisserie on the 22nd Floor. Hands Down, the best cupcakes I have ever had in my life. And, as we discovered, you can buy extra, lug them around in the heat for the rest of your days shopping and they still look and taste fabulous. I totally recommend the Red Velvet and Coconut Chocolate Cupcakes, the macaroons were gorgeous and tasted yummy too.

The Space (Prada & Miu Miu) Warehouse is also a hop skip away from Harbour Plaza, however we didn’t take the time to visit as internet research suggested it was not really worth it, and there was nothing Prada I’ve been eyeing off.

The other place on Central that we spent a lot of time in is the Pedder Building. Its located pretty much right near The Landmark Shopping Centre and is filled with little stores that have factory over-runs and knock off designer clothing. Don’t ask me how you tell the difference on what’s real and what’s not, I had no idea (and being a size 12, I did struggle to fit into a lot of the items, if you are a size 10 or below you will be fine) but it’s more dressier items that in Fa Yuen St. My best buy was an Ann Taylor double breasted coat in a vibrant pink for $25. It was funny to come across some Alice McCall, Kitten and the like (also for around the $25AUD mark) to make you realise who gets what done in China. There are six floors to the pedder building, and my recommendation is to take the lift up to the top and then work your way down via the stairs – those lifts were ridiculously slow.

Lantau Island

We also checked out the Citygate Outlets on Lantau Island after returning from the Tian Tan Buddha – amazing, totally worth the visit. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for Citygate. It sounds fantastic – 7 for all Mankind Outlet, Kate Spade Outlet etc etc….but it was very meh. It was a lot like the DFO stores in Australia, a few legit outlets and then lots of stores pretending to be outlets with one section of sale items and the rest current season at full price. The 7 for all Mankind outlet did have 3 pairs of jeans for $150AUD, but however hard we tried we just couldn’t find three pairs of decent jeans. The only place we made any purchases from here was the IT Warehouse, which also has a Kowloon store. I really only recommend Citygate if you are already on Lantau Island.

Kowloon

The aforementioned IT Warehouse Store is located in Silvercord , right near Harbour City Shopping Centre. On my hitlist was A.P.C, which I adore, and it was all 60% off the RRP – however the stock was a bit average so I only walked away with one top. The thing with the IT Warehouse is that you have to be prepared to wade through a lot of stuff to find the good things. We found the clothing to be better at Citigate, but the shoes were better at Silvercord. Notable purchases were Cacharel heels for $45AUD, a See by Chloe tee for $50AUD and my A.P.C shirt for $80AUD. The one good thing about both IT Stores is that the clothing is organised by brands in alphabetical order, so its pretty easy to find your favourite brands. Whilst in Silvercord do also visit Din Fa Tai Fung Dumpling restaurant – they were yummy!

Shenzhen

Shenzhen is about 20 minutes by MTR from Hong Kong and where, so I am told, all the Hong Kong ladies go to shop. I’ve heard alternating things about Lo Wu – some people love it, some people loathe it, but we were keen to try it out – especially the jewellery bazaar. Unfortunately the Visa rules have changed and you can no longer get a Visa at the border. I believe this has something to do with the Olympics, so my recommendation is to either get a Visa at home is Australia, or make sure you leave enough time to get one in Hong Kong (it’s a minimum of 2 working days, and you need your passport, outgoing flight tickets and a separate passport photo), which we didn’t do. If you don’t have a Visa, you can still get out of Hong Kong but will be turned back at the Chinese Border and then need to be re-processed back into Hong Kong, which is just time consuming (and does fill your passport up with pretty little ‘cancelled’ stamps).

Overall, I really enjoyed Hong Kong, and will be heading back for more in the future. My tips are to wear comfortable shoes, take a tape measure around with you (damn those ‘No Fitting’ signs) and take a backpack around with you to carry all your shopping – those bags get heavy after awhile! To the right to can see part of our haul (this is with a day and half to go, where I substantially increased my shoe purchases).

Another idea is to put together a hit list of shops you must visit – it can be a little overwhelming and it wasn’t til I got  home I realised I had missed H&M Kids for my niece!

Street Shopping & Markets

Hong Kong Island

On Hong Kong Island we checked out the Lanes (Li Yuen Street East and Li Yuen Street West ), which are two small lanes with Markets in the middle and tiny little stores along the sides, which is open daily. There were some cute shoes here for around the $10-$15AUD mark (mostly patent and gladiator sandals), but I for one was disappointed in the range overall – I feel like I saw the same 20 pairs of shoes, over and over. Do also keep in mind, that your feet will be swollen when shoe shopping – luckily I stocked up on a heap of heel inserts at Sasa!. The clothing here was nothing to write home about – lots of sequinned t-shirts and baby doll tops, but for Hello Kitty or Disney Princess Paraphernalia you needed look no further. Want a Hello Kitty toilet seat? Done. Big paint tubes that act as a tissue dispenser. Come here. There was also lots of cute cheap jewellery, underwear, bags and the usual tourist market stuff. Not an essential visit if you’re planning on hitting the Temple Street or Ladies Market, but fun all the same.

Our favourite shop was one we randomly stumbled upon after visiting the Man Mo Temple . I can’t for the life of me remember the name of it, but I do remember the address (Its on the corner of Hollywood Rd and Peel St). It was just this odd little vintage store and it was seriously my dream vintage store. They had a gorgeous brand new Alexander McQueen dress for $166AUD (cream, lace, it was stunning) oodles of vintage jewellery and sunglasses, kewpie dolls, some gorgeous craft items from up and coming HK designers (I kept eyeing off a pretzel brooch) and my bargain purchase for the trip – a Kate Spade Pencil Case set, in perfect condition, complete with all the authentic packaging for AU$13. I was so excited. This store was everything I’d ever dreamed about in a vintage store. They also had heaps of vintage designer shoes and was just such fun. We managed to spend an hour just playing in here.

Kowloon

On the Kowloon side, we checked out Granville Rd, which was good for clothing stores, as was Fa Yuen St . Fa Yuen St has a market in the middle during the day, and the stores on each side of the lane were mostly clothing export stores – so they basically get the factory over-runs in big bins and you dig through and see what you can find. Most of the clothing here is pretty casual though, think GAP t-shirts, Country Road hooded zip jumpers and the like, but it IS cheap. The aforementioned Country Road hoody was tagged at $AU13, which means with bargaining you could have paid as little as $5. Dotted in between were a few fashion stores, but Fa Yuen was predominantly export stores and shoe stores, and is where I would recommend going for shoes. We find probably the best range here, and for an average price of $10 a pair, I was a happy camper.

Other great little finds in Kowloon were a store on Waterloo Rd which sold beautifully made jewellery boxes, ranging from $5AUD-$30AUD. What I really loved about these jewellery boxes was that they all came with the proper velvet trays inside, so you could line up your watch collection up just like in the jewellery store. We had to keep our luggage limit in mind here, so I didn’t go too crazy (ok, I bought three!) but the store also wrapped them up nice and safe and they have arrived home in one piece.

Marketwise, the two we hit was the famous Ladies Market and Temple St Market . Both pretty much sold similar stuff, there was lots of jewellery, tourist clothing, electronics and the like, although Temple Street tended to be a bit more organised (like the one section devoted to ‘adult’ products. That was pretty funny.) At Temple St you can also choose from a dizzying array of fortune tellers to hear about your future (undoubtedly fabulous. My favourite part was where I asked the fortune teller if children were in my future (at my sisters request) and he replied ‘Yes, you are capable of having children’ – yes, I have noticed I am a female!) Temple Street Market was slightly more fun, as it had lots of nice food places and music, but both are worth checking out. Dotted around Temple Street was groups of different types of stores (although I can’t give you specific locations as I was hopelessly lost by this point) – such as Hair care Supplies (the one place I managed to find Dry Shampoo) so do take the time to explore the streets surrounding the markets because you never know what you will stumble upon. I’ve got no photos of the markets because my camera does not play nice at night sadly.

Sasa & Bonjour

I’m giving these stores there own special mention since they were so much fun. Both are sort of like Priceline, but with more upmarket cosmetics (think Clinique, Chanel and the like). You can’t walk two blocks without tripping over one of the other and ‘falling’ inside and spending a few dollars. My personal favourite part was the little sample pots they sold of various high end cosmetics for around $2-$5AUD – think SK-II, Dior and the like, which you could then try out a wide variety of different cosmetics for not a lot (and I am the master at making my sample pots last). Other notable mentions are the perfume (I didn’t look in-depth at this, since thanks to Strawberrynet I’m likely to last any worldwide perfume shortage easily), random face masks for $.90cents AUD), make up applicators for $2….really the list goes on. Its fun to go in, fill up a basket and be charged around $30AUD depending on what you buy!

Hong Kong shopping can basically be split into two main areas: Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. Whilst we stayed on the Kowloon side of HK, its so easy with the MTR (Subway) to get around, we still managed to cover both sides pretty well, so today I present the first of my round up of shopping in Hong Kong! (warning: Its a long post, even split into three!!)

One thing I should point out is that this was my first trip to Hong Kong, so I’m sure we missed some hidden gems (feel free to tell me about them for my next trip though!)

Shopping Centres

Hong Kong Island

We checked out quite a few department stores in Hong Kong – The Landmark in Central was a favourite for me since it had two Marc Jacobs stores and  Juicy Couture store (hello, heaven on earth!) not to mention Dior, Harvey Nichols, a huge Louis Vuitton store and oodles of other high end stores I’ve probably missed. Just across the road was Marks and Spencer, which I was not really a fan of. Perhaps the English M&S is better, but I found the clothing to be bland and the shoes to be no great shakes either. The underwear section looked good, but with a…shall we say, generous bust, I have no chance of ever finding my size anywhere in Asia, so I don’t really bother looking.  There was also a HMV just next to the Landmark, although DVD’s weren’t cheap – Gossip Girl Season 1 was out, but at $80AUD I was willing to wait til it hit Australia.

Another good mall was the IFC mall , which was HUGE.  There was a massive Zara store, Godiva, and my new favourite store, City Super (left). City Super is a supermarket and general store rolled into one, and I loved it. I am a sucker for knick knacky stuff, of which there was heaps – for example,  my brother will soon be the proud owner of a smoking monkey (yes, it really smokes, but I don’t know how yet since I haven’t seem him to open it), there were lomo camera’s (Holga’s were $50AUD!), heaps of cute stationery goodies and a big beauty section. Seriously, City Super rocked. They also had a great deli section with freshly cooked fish, salads and sushi, which were excellent for eating healthily on the go. My recommendations is the Mrin baked Sea Bass, it was so tasty. My advice is to visit a few City Super’s as the stock is really different in all of them (and don’t assume you can find the smoking monkey’s at all – I wanted another and could not for the life of me remember which City Super I bought it at)

Kowloon

Over in Kowloon, my favourite shopping centre was Harbour City . Its located right near the Star Ferry Terminal (which has its own shopping centre attached to it) and was the home of Facess (to the right). Now, I’m not a beauty addict, but even my heart started to beat faster at the site of all those make up counters in one spot. MAC, NARS, Shu Uemura, Bliss – oh they were all there and the prices!! To give you a rough idea, my MAC foundation cost me $38AUD, MAC eye shadow pots were $20AUD and Shu Uemura Eyelash Curler was $16AUD. And if you still needed a further beauty fill, just outside Facess was Chanel Beaute and over the other side was Lane Crawford, which is Hong Kong’s high end department store which had even MORE make-up counters (I admit to spending ages playing at Smashbox. That’s one beauty brand I just love. They had two great specials – 6 full size lip glosses for $36AUD and a face and eye compact also for $36AUD). Harbour City also had a City Super, although not as good as the one over in the IFC Mall. Its definitely worth hitting the various City Super’s you see as they all carried different things.

We also headed out to Festival Walk in Kowloon Tong, mostly because I saw a Marc by Marc Jacobs bag on sale (70% off) and I stupidly didn’t snap it up, so I then dragged my poor cousin around to every one of the six Marc Jacobs stores in Hong Kong to find it (no, I never did. Let a lesson be learnt: If it’s Marc Jacobs and 70% off, just bloody buy it). We did come across Blair’s dress from the white party episode of Gossip Girl for $216AUD, however as a non-size 0, I had no hope of getting into it. It was so pretty though. I was utterly shattered to find that the Marc by Marc Jacobs Special Items collection was not stocked in Hong Kong (there went everyone’s cheap but fabulous souvenirs). Festival Walk also had the quietest H&M we came across. Oh, H&M. This was my first H&M experience and I loved it. The quality seemed to vary – some were quite good, some less so, but always the pricing was great. My best buy was a gorgeous thick wool, fully lined Magenta wool coat for $50AUD. It’s stunning. One thing to keep in mind with H&M though, we found the shoes in H&M to be a overpriced (by HK standards) and found pretty similar at the street markets for about the third of the price.

We didn’t end up visiting all the Shopping Centres – we skipped Elements entirely, and only briefly toured Pacific Place and Times Square. The one thing I found was that if a brand is in Hong Kong, they are in nearly every shopping centre, so by hitting a few, you’re still seeing the majority of stores.