A warm, rainy morning, no use for walking — which made it a day for the malls, and another round in the errand that had quietly shaped our week: tracking down a set of Beyblades for our grandson. It sounds simple. It was not. They were the toy every child wanted that season, which meant they were the toy no shop seemed to have — and the search, which had already beaten me once in the Sham Shui Po markets, carried us across more of Hong Kong’s shopping floors than we’d ever have found on purpose.
Hong Kong rewards this kind of aimless, purposeful wandering. The malls were packed on a Tuesday morning, because Hong Kong is always packed; the markets carried on regardless of the rain. Somewhere in it the shopping outgrew the luggage, and we bought an extra suitcase from a Mong Kok stall for a fair price — the surest sign a trip is nearly over. We ran the search on bubble tea, and ended the day, as we often did, over a plate of chicken and rice in a nearby shopping centre: simple, and exactly enough.
Yes, I did get a beyblade – one that’s sought after in the UK but not so much out here. The one everyone here is looking for is out of stock all over Hong Kong. Next trip perhaps?