Saturday April 29th 2006

Yesterday we went to a furniture outlet mall, but typical Hong Kong, it was in a 27 story building.  It is called Horizon Plaza and is in the Ap Wei Chan area of Hong Kong, over on the ocean side, to the south. We took the elevator to the 27^th floor and then worked our way down. We were looking for some very specific things – a storage unit for the kitchen, a desk, filing cabinets, balcony furniture, and in that respect we only had a little luck. The stores were a mish-mash. One floor would have garden supplies and the next floor would be stuffed full of “antiques” from Shanghai. The stores with old Chinese furniture were a trip. I know at first we both laughed at the overly ornate, stereotypically Chinese designs, but 27 floors is a lot of furniture. By the time we got to the bottom floor, marble-topped 2-headed elephant tables start to look pretty good!

One floor held an Italian grocery store. We went a little crazy there, as anyone that knows Lee can imagine. We stocked up on pasta, capers and cans of tomatoes, to be delivered on Tuesday.

Another floor held a wine wholesaler. Good wine at decent prices is difficult to find in Hong Kong, so we bought a couple of cases (they let us taste them first), also to be delivered.

We did see some things that we will probably go buy at some point, more as proof that we really did live in Asia than anything else. There are these Chinese bentwood chairs that are pretty neat. I also like the Chinese medicine cabinets, and the baskets with copper trim. But nothing practical.

We’re going to end up going back to IKEA today I guess. We discovered that there are actually FOUR IKEAS in Hong Kong, so we’re going to go the “flagship” store, which is off in the wilds of Kowloon. I’ll be with Lee, so nobody will “lady, lady” me on the way there!