Hong Kong Western Market Tour
A Place Where People Went Grocery Shopping in the Past

If you take a tram tour , you may take a Hong Kong Western Market Tour. This area brought me back to my childhood. My grandparents lived in this area for many, many years. Both my grandfather and father's offices were just a couple blocks away so as their Chiu Chow restaurant ran together with their business partners. Therefore, I visited Sheung Wan every week, if not daily, throughout the first 20 years of my life.

The tram stops in front of the Hong Kong Western Market Building. If you have a chance, check out this Edwardian-style building. Inside, there are cloth dealers, restaurants and mini food stores.

But when I was a child, it was a very stinky wet market. I remember walking in with my grandfather and buying produce.

The lobby is no longer crowded with stalls and people buying produce

The arch and balcony are part of the original structure of the building, not the chandelier

Instead of stall, there are many cloth stores. No more staircase, but escalators

An old phone booth during the British colonial era

A plague at one entrance of the Hong Kong Western Market

A plague at the other entrance says, "This plague marks the site of a time capsule commemorating the Renovation of Western Market December 15, 1990"

Next to the building, it was the southern block of the old Western Market. It used to be a place for whole selling vegetables and fruits. My grandfather had been importing and exporting fruits in SE Asia and Hong Kong for many years. He always liked to come here to check out the fruit and buy cases of fruit to take back home as well. I remember that it was huge and people were always busy loading, unloading and packing produce.

Walking towards the harbour, you can take the hydro-jet, that is stationed in Shun Tak Centre (coming soon link to Shun Tak Centre page), to Macau. In my opinion, you must spend at least a day in Macau while you are here touring in Hong Kong. You don't need an additional visa, except for citizens from certain countries. The area where the buildings are now used to be a parking lot during the day time and a flea market at night time.

At night, there were people performing, such as singing and Chinese orchestra. There were booths serving food. I still remember eating cockles.

Also, there were many fortune tellers. The most popular kind was the one with the birds. This was how they did it. The fortune teller had at least one bird in a cage. When someone is interested, like my father, the fortune teller would let a bird out. It would pick an envelope for the fortune teller. He would explain to his clients what it was about. There was one time that my father went to 2 different fortune tellers of the same kind within one night.

Of course, both told different things to him. My dad didn't know which one he should believe in.

If you are interested in buying a personalized seal stone because of the inspiration from the trip to the Hong Kong Seal Stone Museum, take a less than 10-minute walk to a major seal stone shopping place, after this Hong Kong Western Market tour.

If you are not too interested in the Hong Kong Western Market Tour, stay on the tram and move forward to the Western District. This is another very interesting area for you to explore.

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