Tung Choi Street is a street between the south of Sai Yeung Choi Street and Fa Yuen Street in Kowloon. It is a popular, well known street market with heaps of street vendors selling all kinds of fashion goods and accessories. Some of these fashion goods are knock-offs of luxury brands, so don’t be fooled into thinking you have purchased a genuine Gucci handbag or Supreme T-shirt. At the southern section, this area is known as the Ladies Market, which sells plenty of cheap products for both men and women (not just ladies).
You are bound to find some interesting souvenirs and gifts to take back home from clothes, accessories, gadgets, gimmicky things and snacks. For us, we found some really funny T-shirts, with purposively bad spelling, and car registration plates with funny sayings like ‘No Money, No Honey’ or non-sensical English like ‘No Smoking I Will Crazy’. It’s worth taking a few photos of these things, because they are great to share with family at home.
We also stumbled across some DVD and Blu-Ray stores selling pirated television series and movies. (These stores were common when I was young, so it was interesting to see them again.)
The closest station to the market is Mong Kok MTR Station which will take you to the southern end of the Ladies Market. It is easy to traverse the public train system in Hong Kong and it is pretty reliable.
When we visited the market, we were amazed by how much stuff there was. (Albeit, we didn’t want to buy much.) There were so many tourists, all tightly squeeze in the narrow gap between the street stores. If you want to avoid the tight squeeze, you can go around the sides, but then you miss out on the frontage for most of the stores.
If you do see something you like, it is worthwhile haggling so that you can get a bargain because the vendors always start with inflated prices. One way to getting a good price may be to avoid wearing expensive clothing and whip out your smile every now and then. It pays to be polite. (But also be mindful that these people have mouths to feed back at home. Thinking about Hong Kong homes, they are so tiny.) If you want to haggle, start with 50% of the marked price and you will probably meet in the middle with the vendor.
There are also plenty of options for food and drink in the area. You can grab yourself some bubble tea (or boba) from one of the many establishments or enjoy a Hong Kong roast dish with rice or noodles. The options are amazing. We grab a boba from The Koi, which doesn’t have a presence in Australia yet, and it was incredible. The pearls (or tapioca balls) were done really well. The drink wasn’t super sweet. There was also The Alley LuJiaoXiang, which recently opened up when we visited, and that had lines stretching 30 minutes long.
The walk, if you aren’t dawdling, will take you only around 30 minutes. So, if you have time, spend more time at the stores that you find interesting. Once you have your fill, you can wonder around the side alleys to see what other secrets Hong Kong can offer.
It’s a worthwhile place to visit and you will probably remember it well into the future.
This long, narrow market runs the length of Tung Choi Street in Mong Kok. At its southern end, closest to Mong Kok MTR Station.
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