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Stickied for future reference
Wan Chai:
MTR exit A3. cross johnston road to tai yuen street, walk up tai yuen street and there are at least 4-5 stores selling toys.
if you come back out to johnston road again, turn right, past the MTR exit you walked out of and up johnston road, you should come to a massive junction. if you go past southorn playground with the basketball courts and football pitch, you've gone in the wrong direction. at the junction, you need to cross and follow wan chai road. you'll find yourself going up a small slope and it should be impossible to miss the famous 188 centre, where some toys are still sold, and the building next door with mcdonalds and delifrance there's a few places as well.
Causeway Bay:
MTR exit D3, which leads into the japanese department store sogo. the toy floor in sogo is on the 5th or 6th floor, and used to be decent.
once you get back on the ground floor of sogo using the escalators, go out the main doors and up great george street to windsor house. there's a united models shop on the second floor of windsor and the causeway bay TRU is on the third floor.
when you're done with windsor house, come out down the escalator, back on to great george street. turn right, and go up to the corner of windsor house, round the back of windsor house. there's a street called sugar street. in the causeway bay centre, there's a few toy stores in the basement, one of which does disney stuff and has some star wars stuff in it. on the 1st floor, there's a model/gashapon shop and metrocomics is there. on the 2nd floor is clark's comics, clark's collectibles, and sandwiched in between is a small toy store run by a guy called leo. if you speak to leo, tell him i sent you and he should give you decent prices.
after you come out of the causeway bay centre, continue down sugar street. there should be a newspaper vendor stand outside a commercial building. go into the commercial building. on the 16th floor is a massive toys outlet doing all sorts of toys, including star wars stuff, and it's an absolutely unknown hidey hole unless you are serious about collecting.
Mongkok:
MTR Exit D2, cross the road and walk up argyle street, past the sincere podium to richmond plaza. there's a ton of stuff, modelling and toys and gashapon, in the richmond plaza so check out all floors including the basement.
MTR Exit E2, turn and head back to nathan road. turn left and follow nathan road down. after a bit of a walk you should find the sino centre, which is absolutely massive. there are a number of stores in the basement, and there will be some toy stores on the floors accessible by escalator, so 1-3 i think. as with the place in causeway bay, there are also shops squirreled away on the floors of the commercial building: there are toy stores on the 9th, 10th and 12th foors, very easy to find.
once you're done with the sino centre, head back out onto nathan road, and continue along the same direction you were before. you will hit dundas street. do not cross. turn left up dundas street and go round the corner to sai yeung choi street south. you will find a shopping centre called the CTMA centre, and the two basement floors and three shopping centre levels are worth checking out, particularly for the awesome displays in the 2nd floor.
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there's all sorts of other little places but these are the places worth hitting because of the high concentration of shops.
antonio's helpful hints:
- bring cash. very few people will take cards and frankly, cash is preferred.
- unless you are buying multiple items, do not try and negotiate the prices down. in the proper shops, they simply don't do discounts. less formal places may do so. if they give you a discount, ask for a business card, because you never know if you might come back.
- do NOT wander around talking loudly in english and attracting attention to yourself.
- do NOT take pictures of the displays unless you have asked permission beforehand. flattery helps: explain that you never see such big displays in your native toy shops.
- it takes me about 6 hours to do all these places in one go, and that's me knowing where they are and what i'm looking for. set aside at least two days - it's absolutely crippling to walk this much in a day.
- no toy store in hong kong, unless it's a big department store or shop like TRU, opens before 2pm. 3 - 4pm is when things kick off. shops open til late i.e. 7 or 8.
- if you are able to choose the dates you do your shopping, make sure you do it on monday or tuesday. towards the end of the week, it's always more crowded. and if you think you know what crowded means, think again, because hong kong will redefine your idea of crowded. avoid the MTR at the 5:45 - 6:30 CRUSH of rush hour.
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(Im in HK! *waves*)
