Continuing on my blog posts of different districts and neighborhoods I revisited during our February 2024 Hong Kong visit, let’s start off with Kwai Fong.

Kwai Fong

I feel my ties to Kwai Fong are rooted in the fact that I had my school/government-mandated full body checkups in a medical center near here. This meant that my sister, my mom, and I would frequent here because it was an obligation—but we’d stay because there are quirky and affordable malls here.

One of my old favorite malls was Kwai Chung Plaza. I fondly remember a fishing booth on the ground floor where an old man would hand you a few paper nets and you had to try to catch some goldfish in kiddie pools. Depending on how many you caught, you can choose a prize—OR you could choose to take the fish home. I always left with some new slinky toy or a kid-friendly puzzle.

This mall is home to a bunch of food stalls. We ate our breakfast at Yoshinoya, and then I got another bagged noodles. I also got this “10 cent” waffle (it was like $30 HKD, but it was shaped like a 10 cent) that was stuffed with cheese that allowed me to do a really good cheese pull. We got some drinks from a bubble tea place, and given my limited ability to read Chinese, I asked the fiancé what he wanted. I ordered myself ginger milk, and he somehow got me to order the drink with the longest name with a lot of characters I didn’t know how to pronounce. Thanks.

There are lots of clothing stalls, but I couldn’t find much to my liking. I also checked out a fair amount of their beauty and knick-knacks stores but I think my haul was minimal that day.

We also ended up walking around to some of the more modern malls surrounding Kwai Chung Plaza and took some fun photos. But otherwise, this was a short and sweet stop for me!

Sham Shui Po

Sham Shui Po is actually where my mom and dad’s family homes were (for a chunk of time anyway). They lived only streets away from each other, but didn’t meet until they both went to school in Toronto together in the same high school. Life’s funny like that.

We wanted to hit up Golden Arcade (not actually an arcade) since we had wanted to look at computer parts and video games. However, I feel Golden has changed a lot. I used to be able to find a lot of cheap options here for electronics, but it seems like that’s no longer the case. It’s an okay place still for electronics, but don’t expect to find amazing deals anymore. I feel it’s because they scaled back on the sketchier/no-name brands and now mostly carry the mainstream brands—so they can’t discount it much.

Of course, if there’s a street food stall I’m probably going to gravitate towards it so we got some street food. We then walked around Sham Shui Po’s “toy street” a bit and then met up with my dad to walk down Apliu Street. Apliu Street is one that my dad frequents a lot. You can find phone chargers, cases, batteries, sketchy SIM cards, and more here. Anything electronics-related, you probably can find a street stall that’ll sell it to you.

We had dinner in Sham Shui Po twice since we visited this district more than once for this trip. For the first trip, my dad took us to Siu Choy Wong (No.43 Fuk Wing Street, Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong China) for dinner to give my fiancé a feel of the dai pai dong experience. Siu Choy Wong doesn’t allow outdoor seating anymore (the cops will come to reprimand them if they spill out into the streets), but they still cook their food in an outdoor stall. The food here was SO GOOD!

We also had dinner at a Chiu Chow stir fry place called 潮味苑 (Chiu Mei Yuen – Shop A, G/F, Asian Building, 254-258 Cheung Sha Wan Road, Sham Shui Po) on another day where we got their signature duck platter and I finally got my fishball soup noodles. We also got an oyster pancake! I love Asian oyster pancakes.

For both our visits, we ended up at Dragon Center late in the night. That means we got to go to their food court to eat some desserts! The last time the fiancé and I were in HK, we came back many times for the assorted ice cream balls! I’m glad the place still exists.

Dragon Center is so cool. It’s an older mall now, but it has everything. And that includes an ice skating rink and a roller coaster (no longer operating, but still stands proudly on the top floor of the mall). I love the floors that have tiny little shops they’ve designated as part of their “Apple Mall” areas. These stores sell everything! Again, we saw lots of unmanned gacha stalls, as well as crane machines. I also forced my mom and dad to take some photo booth photos with me. It was super cramped with 4 people!

Our second visit back to Sham Shui Po was because I had to renew my HKID (quite overdue). I’m relieved that I got it over with this trip since it has been on my to-do for a while.

Cheung Chau

A long time ago, one of my aunts took the ladies on my mom’s side of the family to Cheung Chau for an overnight stay at her school’s hostel. She’s a principal of a high school and they have facilities in Cheung Chau for students. It’s a fuzzy but fond memory for me!

This time, my dad took us back to Cheung Chau to eat seafood! There are many seafood restaurants with a wide variety of offerings in this little fishing village.

Cheung Chau is also famous for its bun festival! Each year, they set up towers of steamed buns that people come to “snatch” near their temple. The higher up your bun was, the more fortune was to be experienced by your family that year. At one point the towers collapsed which injured many and now they have new rules in place for the bun snatching. I ended up getting some bun-themed souvenirs for my Canadian friends from Cheung Chau.

Cheung Chau also has lots of famous snack foods. They have giant fish balls, fried ice cream, and delicious mango mochi. The mango mochi is even better than the ones at Riceholic in Richmond! I wish I could eat these buffet-style. I would be able to polish off so many. Before heading back on the ferry to go back to Hong Kong, we bought the giant steamed buns (with lotus seed paste). It only felt right we had one of the famous buns!

And we’ll wrap here for this blog post 🙂