Hong Kong and Macau_ City Guide (Lonely Planet, 14th Edition) - Andrew Stone [43]
First for the consultation: you will be asked a few questions, your pulse will be taken and then your tongue examined to reveal how balanced your humours are and whether you have too much heat or cold in your constitution.
According to the prognosis the tonic will very likely be a medicinal tea. This may be a simple herbal infusion or something containing more exotic ingredients. Some are helpfully described in the window, such as powdered deer’s horn, monkey’s visceral organs (the latter invaluable if you need to ‘remove excessive sputum’) and deer’s tail (a marvel if you need to ‘strengthen sinews’ or ‘treat the seminal emission’).
Other ingredients might include desiccated deer’s penis, dinosaur teeth or horse bezoars (gallstone-like balls formed in horses’ stomachs, and the herbalist’s poison antidote of choice).
Whatever the ingredients, the resulting brew is invariably dark brown, sour in smell and bitter to taste. Drink up now.
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CAT ST Map
9am-6pm; 26
Located southwest of Sheung Wan MTR station and just north of (and parallel to) Hollywood Rd is Upper Lascar Row, the official name of ‘Cat St’, which is a pedestrians-only lane lined with antique and curio shops and stalls selling found objects, cheap jewellery, ornaments, carvings and newly minted ancient coins. It’s a fun place to trawl through for a trinket or two, but expect even the apparently recent memorabilia to be mass-produced fakes. There are proper shops on three floors of the Cat Street Galleries (Casey Bldg, 14/f 38 Lok Ku Rd; 11am-7pm Mon-Sat), which is a small shopping centre that is entered from Upper Lascar Row.
WESTERN MARKET Map
6029 2675; 323 Des Voeux Rd Central & New Market St; 9am-7pm; MTR Sheung Wan (exit B)
When the textile vendors were driven out of the lanes linking Queen’s Rd Central and Des Voeux Rd Central in the early 1990s, they moved to this renovated old market (1906) with its distinctive four-corner towers. You’ll find knickknacks, jewellery and toys on the ground floor, piece goods on the 1st floor and bolts of cloth on the floors above it. The top floor is a restaurant and wedding reception venue.
MAN WA LANE Map
MTR Sheung Wan (exit A1)
Just east of the Sheung Wan MTR station, this narrow alley is a good introduction to traditional Sheung Wan. Stalls here specialise in name chops: a stone (or wood or jade) seal that has a name carved in Chinese on the base. When dipped in pasty red Chinese ink, the name chop can be used as a stamp or even a ‘signature’. The merchant will create a harmonious and auspicious Chinese name for you.
POSSESSION ST Map
26
A short distance west of Cat St, next to Hollywood Road Park and before Hollywood Rd meets Queen’s Rd West, is Possession St. This is thought to be where Commodore Gordon Bremmer and a contingent of British marines planted the Union flag on 26 January 1841 and claimed Hong Kong Island for the Crown (though no plaque marks the spot). Queen’s Rd runs in such a serpentine fashion as it heads eastward because it once formed the shoreline of Hong Kong Island’s northern coast, and this part of it was called Possession Point.
TAI PING SHAN TEMPLES Map
26
Tai Ping Shan, a tiny neighbourhood in Sheung Wan and one of the first areas to be settled by Chinese after the founding of the colony, has several small temples clustered around where Tai Ping Shan St meets Pound Lane. Kwun Yam Temple (34 Tai Ping Shan St) honours the ever-popular goddess of mercy, Kun Iam – the Taoist equivalent of the Virgin Mary. Further to the northwest, the recently renovated Pak Sing Ancestral Hall (42 Tai Ping Shan St) was originally a storeroom for bodies awaiting burial in China. It contains the ancestral tablets of around 3000 departed souls.
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HONG KONG’S WHOLESALE DISTRICT
Walking Tour
1 Dried Seafood Shops Begin the tour at the Sutherland St stop of the Kennedy Town tram. Have a look at (and a sniff of) Des Voeux Rd West’s many