OuendanCyrus said:
I only just got back from HK this July, lived at a hotel in Sha Tin, had a few game stores.
Looked like
yamy said:
Hit up Sum Shui Po across the harbour as well - another well known centre for computer hardware/smartphone and games. You won't be disappointed. There's also a sprawling street market as well as a street specialized in selling toys there. Golden Shopping Centre is a heaven for computer enthusiast.
The interesting thing though is that I feel the 2nd hand market is much more robust over in the UK than in HK. I've had more 2nd hand bargains in the UK than in HK. Buying on Steam is still cheaper as well, with Steam Sale.
If you ever have the time, go hit up an arcade as well. They might be harder to find Island side, but its well worth it. Street Fighter 4 is commonplace and surprisingly popular.
I'll check out all these places, thanks! When I wrote this article I'd only been in HK about six days, so there's still a lot out there to explore. I haven't even
been to Kowloon yet, and I hear there's an even bigger electronics market there. Not to mention Shenzen, which I hear is on a whole other level - whole city blocks of electronics.
Vie said:
I suspect I'd really like Hong Kong, even though I'm not normally big on large cities.
Hated London and Paris, love Brum. Something about the Gestalt in all three cases, and I suspect HK would probably fit me well.
Also your article started me off on a Wikipedia trawl after looking up "The World of Suzie Wong."
I'm currently reading a, surprisingly fascinating, article on prostitution in the city... ..I blame you for this in the nicest possible way.
I'm generally not a big city person but I love it here, probably because there's so much green space (the mountains here are so sheer that they're impossible to build on, so you have these beautiful green hills that keep the city from feeling endless).
Glad to hear I kicked off a research jaunt - that's basically the point of this whole column, to get people interested in real-world topics through the lens of games.
likalaruku said:
So where those chickens rubber. or does the owner think yellow paint makes up for a lack of cold storage?
I like how it's basically a horror story until you find something worth buying.
I'm not sure whey they're that pale yellow, but they do kind of resemble rubber chickens. They sell them with the heads on here so you know exactly what you're buying, the assumption being that if the head's off someone might be feeding you some other, cheaper kind of meat and trying to pass it off as chicken or duck. The heads are even on when you buy them in bags at the grocery store (the meat counters also have whole quartered pigs and tanks of live fish, but that's another story). Frankly, I never realized until I came here how insulated western culture is from the realities of our meat consumption - when I eat canned chicken soup or even rotisserie chicken in the U.S., I'm buying faceless meat, but here I'm definitely eating an animal that used to be alive. It's a little unsettling.
As for shopping in HK being a horror story, even when I failed to find games, it was tons of fun!
LTK_70 said:
Robert, please never stop writing.
Thanks, I appreciate that. Now that I'm living here I'll have more time to devote to writing rather than juggling a full-time job and doing this on the side.
Kittyhawk said:
So is Rob the permanent HK gaming attache, now? Or is it just a holiday?
My wife took a job here, and I was happy to move because it allows me to concentrate on writing rather than sandwiching writing in-between the day job - that, plus we get to see Asia! Pretty good deal. I'll be here a couple of years at least, so expect to hear more about game development in Asia and overseas markets, because it's suddenly my beat.
