Hong Kong: Antiquing on Cat Street

Though not particularly set on purchasing anything, we were interested in walking around Cat Street.  The shops varied tremendously from being very neat and tidy with legitimate looking antiques to literally a junk heap that you had to scrounge through to find treasures. 

We ran into an interesting person at one of the shops who noticed a little charm on my backpack.  It is a little piece of wood displaying a few Chinese characters that we got at the top of Mount Fuji when we climbed it last year.  This older man who ran an antique shop asked us if we knew what it meant, when we said we did he was surprised and (I think) impressed. 

The characters mean something like “protection of the senses.”  However, they are written in characters that nobody can read anymore.  Our new friend was interested in our story and asked us if we were on our honeymoon.  When we said no, he informed us that it was our second honeymoon and wished us all the best. 

I love little surprise encounters like this. 

We wandered out of the antiques district and found our way to another interesting building.  Built when the British were in Hong Kong, the Western Market is a European style building.  It now holds several restaurants and some nice places to shop for souvenirs.  On the second floor we found some textile shops with some stunning fabrics where Karl bought me a gorgeous silk scarf. 

Back in Soho, we found a nice looking Indonesian restaurant for dinner.  The coconut rice was amazing.