The Find: Toothbrush and toothpaste holder
Final Price: $19
Where found: Small shop on Tai Yuen Street, Wan Cha
Hong Kong is full of small stores selling knickknacks; many of them purportedly useful, others of which are content to get by on their cuteness or ornamental qualities alone. Recently, while trawling through a store that mainly stocks utilitarian items like plastic buckets and all manners of kitchenware, I came across something that, at first glance at least, looked like the kind of glass bubble enclosed souvenir from ye olde London that, when you shook it, would rain plastic snow onto a miniature Tower Bridge or Saint Paul’s Cathedral. And it’s true enough that when you go ahead and shake the object in question, its bits of decoration do start moving as well as floating around inside of their enclosed see-through space before settling down into a different formation from before. Only, the “bonus” here is that this item has a function beyond the decorative. In a nutshell: It may well be the most elaborately decorated – and kitschiest – toothbrush and toothpaste holder that the likes of myself have ever come across!

Sai Wan Ho was a collection of squatter villages until 1968 when the Tai Koo Real Estate company demolished them for residential buildings. Nevertheless, for a residential area Sai Wan Ho has its share of interesting landmarks: one of its most famous buildings, Tai On Building, is filled with vibrant shops and classic Hong Kong food stalls. Such stalls, serving classic HK snacks like curry fish balls, waffle cakes, and skewered beef, are hard to find in Hong Kong itself these days. Right next to Tai On Bldg. on Shau Kei Wan Road is the Sai Wan Ho Civic Centre, home to many cultural activities and local theatre performances. Head towards the bay and you will soon come across the Hong Kong Film Archive which started collecting and preserving Hong Kong films in its four-storey building in 2001. Further down towards the bay, SoHo East is a strip of bars and restaurants on the oceanfront. The variety of bars may not be as diverse as in SoHo, but SoHo East has a far better view – over the ocean. If the high-end restaurants in the strip aren’t to your liking, Shau Kei Wan Road has a large selection of local eateries, with prices as low as $10 for a bowl of noodles.