With our HK end date looming, Sundays have quickly become a blur of “RIGHT we must do something”…however, a combination of lack of sleep (nothing to do with the baby, we’re just candle-both-end-burner types), lack of downtime, saving cash for expensive mission of moving country AGAIN and that old chestnut of having to have a little bit of routine for babes, well sometimes we just can’t quite be fecked. Last Sunday was one of those times. The countdown looms though, so we pulled up our metaphorical socks and consulted our well worn Lonely Planet for a bit of inspiration.

Now given that we’ve been here quite a while, together with the fact that we’ve entertained countless visitors over that time, we really have done most things. We can certainly say we’ve Touristed all the Most Touristy Places as well made a few wee discoveries of our own. So what on earth could LP possibly have to offer us?

With our state of can’t-be-fecked-ness looming ominously over our heads, we decided to stay close-ish to home and hit up some of the parts of the island we hadn’t done to death. Our eyes were drawn to this little synopsis of ‘local life’ round our ways:

Lil’ Jakarta – done. Toy shops – seen. Fujian Town – we live there. HIPSTERVILLE?! We’re from Wellington; we can go and take an ironic laugh at that, for sure! After all, it wouldn’t be very Hipster of us to use Lonely Planet and go look at something seriously, would it? Or would it? Are we being Hipster or not? Are we being ironic or not?  The lines are all askew…arggghhhh…confusion.

Baby bundled up, silly (hipster) accessories donned, off we trotted to unlock the secrets of HK Hipsterville. How exciting!

We found Star Street fairly easily after hopping off the MTR at Admiralty and ascending what appeared to be approximately 40 escalators. Fine on foot, sucks with a pram, especially when there were signs everywhere telling you not to take prams on the escalators. Whatever. There were no other routes that we could discern and anyway, we’re Too Cool to follow the rules.

We quickly came across Amical – a cafe we’d heard about repeatedly but never made the effort to seek out. It seemed like an auspicious sign so we rang the buzzer at the bottom of the stairs to be granted entry and headed up the stairs. Selective entry? How Very Cool.

It’s a bright, airy space with a lovely balcony that, on the day we went, was bathed in sunshine. There didn’t appear to be any particularly Hip Hipsters though. Just a few regular people enjoying a quiet coffee. 

We basked in our Individuality awash in accessories and drank our espresso. Cause it’s all about the coffee, you see. *Hair flick*

Duly caffeinated and with a super trendy cafe to add to our ‘Done’ list, it was off back down the stairs to see what else we could find in Hipsterville. Maybe a Hipster or two, perhaps?!

Everything in this area looks very artfully arranged, creating a little breadcrumb (gluten-free) trail of Hipsterness. Even the streets look accessorised and things are placed just so. Beautiful shops and cafes line the streets with their wares also painstakingly laid out in clean, uber-designed lines.

Something was starting to mess with our brains though…where, WHERE were all the Hipsters?! Or even the regular people?! Sunday is the single most busy day of the week in Hong Kong and, for the majority of people, the only day off.  It’s a day where public transport is even more full than usual, where people line every nook and cranny of the streets, and where families finally get the chance to catch up with each other. Everywhere we looked in this area were beautiful, but eerily quiet, spaces. We’ve never seen so many empty seats, gorgeous though they may be. These seats are just crying out for some Hipster Bottoms. 

Was it possible that we were never going to find any Hipsters, even with the lure of lovely seating and so-cool-it-hurts Scandinavian design stores?!

With despair and disappointment slowly creeping in, we left Star, Moon and Sun Streets behind and turned into St. Francis street – our last chance for Hipness.

We peered down side streets…nothing more than the promise of more empty shops.

Had all the Hipsters disappeared in some kind of Hipster Rapture?! 
We strolled down the street, ready to re-connect with the Real World at the bottom of the hill (aka Wanchai)…when out of the corner of our eye, we spotted something, quickly backtracking and rubbing our eyes to confirm if it was real or not.

Coffee…tick. Hat…tick. Thick-rimmed glasses…tick. Hipster??!!! TICK!

By this stage though, we were bored, hungry and had a scratchy baby who couldn’t have cared less about Hipsters or lack thereof. Adventure completed, it was off back to Fujian Town to revel in our success while clinking our craft beer filled mason jars and instagramming selfies.