hourly

hourly
Originally uploaded by little nemo in slumberland.

there is a hotel called the virginia hourly hotel, also in kowloon. shoppong in hong kong is great fun; upstairs off the main shopping areas there are many micro malls; some, like trendy zone, are multi storey places with prominent entrances and escalators that take you into low-ceilinged labyrinths of tiny shops, others, like yau shing are shops that cluster around the stair and lift wells so that at each floor the lift opens out into a different shop, the only obvious sign at street level being a long queue for the lift. each mall tends to be devoted exclusively to a particular product type; trendy zone shops sell youth fashions, yau shing, AV equipment, there are others that just sell models and model kits, or mens fashion and formal wear. It's very convenient way to look for things, rather than the western model where the same mix of different franchise shops is repeated over and over again; granny mays, just jeans, homeart, wendy;s... ad nauseum.

i stayed overnight in hk last saturday and was woken at 5:45am by yelling and amplified voices booming off the surrounding buildings, i couldn't understand what the voices were saying [mostly cantonese] and when i looked out the window nathan rd was filled with people all running north. My first thought was that a terrible disaster had struck tsim sha tsui and everyone was desperately running for mong kok; the voises were telling them to keep calm and move north in an orderly fashion. as i woke up a little, i noticed that they had all managed to find appropriate running gear, in spite of the panic. Actually, they didn't seem all that panicked, and maybe there was no disaster after all.

26th hk marathon.

i could have entered had i not been so absorbed in my own shopping marathon...