Winter shoe sale!

Octavia and her Italian sample shoes are back! Her pop-up shop is the former Mui Wo Bike Shop between Renge House and Lantau Base Camp. I was so excited I got there before she had unpacked everything.

She has loads of Size 40 and 41 winter boots available.  So for you Cinderellas out there, better make inroads. There were crowds just two hours in, with people grabbing straight from the boxes. She's selling Italian leather boots for around HK$400.

The shop is opened until January 23.

Mui Wo's organic secret

Don Latter from Dragontail Farm holds his Mui Wo Mini Farmers' Market from 10.30am to 12.30pm every Sunday at 13 Rural Committee Road. The produce is picked in the morning from his farm in Luk Tei Tong just down the road so it is as fresh as fresh can be.

Here's a sample of the stuff on sale. I stole a photo when Don wasn't looking. He he...

Don sells organic vegetables, fruits seeds and Dave Sanders and Bing Law's book Growing Food in the City and his prices are really reasonable for organic stuff: HK$15 can get you a huge bunch of sweet potato leaves.

Rain, rain go away, I wanna shop

A heavy drizzle threatened to turn the Discovery Bay flea market into a washout. 

But luckily it dissipated after a bit and everyone could display their goods again.

PALS was doing quite a brisk trade in antique silver. I must admit, I was sorely tempted by the King George VI silver medallion.

Epiphany Church jumble sale is back!

This is the sale I've been waiting all year for. And I wasn't the only one. I passed the church at 9.30am and there were already people milling outside.

It was so packed at 11am that I had to elbow my way in. Why is it so popular? Clothes are HK$10 for four, the better quality pieces are HK$20 each and suits/coats are HK$100. You can emerge with huge bin bags full of stuff and still have spent less than HK$100.

Homeware was less than HK$20.

 And books and CDs started from HK$2 each.

 Is it any wonder I went in there four times today and am planning just as many trips tomorrow?

Flea market at Garden Plus

Sorry for the pathetic number of photos. For the first time, I was a seller so I actually had to stay in my stall to make sure I got enough money to spend.

 

It was great fun. Good atmosphere and a great mix of stuff on sale.

Even Buffalo Wilbur was hooked. I thought he'd get bored after an hour or so but he stayed with me till the end. Can we have more please?

Go on down to the Mui Wo church fair

The food and snacks are homemade and cheap (HK$30 for rice/noodles with choice of two dishes).

And the jumble is unbelievable. Lot of branded stuff (Le Sportsac duffle bag for HK$80, Burberry shirt for HK$10, agnes b wallet for HK$5).

The fair is until 3.30pm today at the church in Chung Hau village. The money goes to charity. If you get on your bike now, you might just be able to catch the tail end of the fair, when they are sure to slash prices further.

Organic farm

I learnt a new phrase during the Japan tsunami: agricultural polytunnels. And we spotted what looked like some outside Luk Tei Tong recently.

Turns out it was Mabel's Roselle Garden, which sells organic produce.

Mabel wasn't in when we passed by but we'll be back in hopes of snaring those really fresh greens.

Cheap crockery and cutlery

Red Hall shop in Silver Pearl Mansion is having a sale of crockery from a Tung Chung restaurant which has closed down.

The stuff is super cheap (porcelain plates for HK$16, cutlery for HK$5 each) and you can get some unusual things like nutcrackers, used for cracking crab claws, and escargot holders.

I was very tempted by the retro cup at HK$16 but, as Buffalo Wilbur pointed out, we already have far too many mugs. If you like it, I'd hurry because there's only one left.

Shoe bargains!

Octavia has opened her pop-up store selling Italian shoe samples again. There aren't as many shoes as in her previous sale but there are more men's shoes.

Some pretty women's boots, perfect for winter.

I scored a pair of fake fur-lined Timberlands (slightly damaged) for HK$100. They'll keep my tootsies warm as the winter chill sets in.

The sale is on until January 16 but I'd advise you to go and grab her best stock now. The shop is the former antiques store next to Lee Hing Loong.

The shoe sale is back!

Buffalo Wilbur asked me out of the blue: "Wonder whether we'll be getting any Italian shoe sample sales this year?"

A day later, I get this email from Octavia:

Shoes sample selling is starting from 17 Dec 2011 - 16 Jan 2012 in Mui Wo, Lantau (same shop located opposite Park N shop),

Saturday/Sunday : 11:00am - 6:30pm

Mon- Fri - 1:30pm- 6:30pm

Lots of ladies, men and kids' shoes.....

See you next week.

Whooo hoo! You won't see me for dust next Saturday!

Chapel's flea market

This notice, pasted on a corner wall in Chung Hau Village, got me all excited. The Epiphany Chapel flea market usually has a bit of everything, from clothes to toys to weird ornaments. It's well worth a visit.

Who's Daily Treasure?

So Silvermine Beach Hotel has been sold.

Hong Kong Ferry announced that: "On 12 May 2011, the Vendor has accepted the tender by the Purchaser to purchase the Property at the consideration of HK$280.8 million subject to and upon the terms of the conditions of sale.

"Taking into account the carrying value of the property and certain furniture and fixtures remaining on the Property, a gain in an estimated sum of approximately HK$240 million before tax."

Woweee, that's a lot of profit. So does that mean HKF bought the hotel for a mere HK$40.8 million? Small change, that.

But more interestingly, who is Daily Treasure Limited?

A quick Google search brings up only Daily Treasure Industrial, established in 1990, and specializing in producing decorative jewelry boxes made of real egg shells... I doubt it's the same company.

Friends in the hotel industry said they've heard rumours that the place will be turned into a conference centre. And when you come to think of it, it does make sense as the hotel is close to the airport, fairly self-contained and has a beach for team-building exercises.

I just hope they have a nice restaurant (or even spa, dare I hope?) open to the public.

Sale at Bizzie Lizzie

You don't need to have a kid (or be one) to go crazy at Bizzie Lizzie's sale. Buffalo Wilbur had to be dragged out of the store before he bought everything.

Liz has been selling the stuff at super low prices already but, just for the final day, she has slashed the sale prices by another 50 percent.

Thank goodness for the sale. It's a wet, stay-indoors kind of day so assembling his boy's toys will keep him occupied all afternoon.

You'd better hurry, though, the sale ends today (Sunday). After that, everything goes to a children's charity.

We went there twice – and it looked like a plague of locusts had descended in the intervening hour or so in between our visits.

Bizzie Lizzie is on the G/F, Shop C, Seaview Building, 1 Ngan Wan Road (that's the row with the microbrewery and Gordon's).

Discovery Bay flea market

I love flea markets. Oh and did I say, I love flea markets?

The Discovery Bay flea market gave me weeks of anticipation.

And to think that, were it not for Jacqui's poster for PALS, I might not even have known it was coming up – I have no idea why the DBay management aren't very good at publicising this much-anticipated event. (The next one, by the way, is on June 26).

We got the early ferry and were there in time for the opening by noon... which meant lots of great buys. To the folks who donated the slightly singed but still useable Le Creuset to PALS, thank you, it has found a good home!

The huge crowds showed how popular the flea market was. And that got me wondering why Mui Wo doesn't have something similar.

We have such a great expanse of unused space at the cargo pier, which we can use for a unique flea market with the sea as a background. Or we can close the road outside Bahce and have a huge fair every month or so.

It will bring so many people to the area... and put Mui Wo on the map. So whom do I have to persuade?

Silvermine Beach Hotel up for grabs

The Silvermine Beach Hotel is ripe for redevelopment. It has so much potential: an amazing location right on the beach, a growing number of visitors willing to try something beyond Central-TST and an expat population looking for something a bit upmarket to hold celebrations and parties.

It's looking a bit shabby and dated at the moment. Just take a look at the hotel-provided photo of a guestroom - that bedspread is so '80s.

Hopefully someone will come along and make the most of this distressed asset.

If I had HK$280 million, I would...

Here's the article from The Standard:

Door opens to owning landmark hotel

Prospective buyers of the Silvermine Beach Hotel may be looking at more than a few possibilities for the site.

The landmark tourist hotel on Lantau Island - being sold by HYFCO Properties for around HK$280 million - has 128 generous-sized rooms and sports and leisure facilities, and can be repositioned as a conference or training center.

It may also be turned into a five-star spa, away from the hustle and bustle of urban Hong Kong. CB Richard Ellis, the agent for the sale, believes the site also has great redevelopment potential: "Silvermine has an area of more than 80,000 square feet, allowing for a low- density redevelopment in its setting of beach, sea and mountain."

In other words, it may be a gold mine.

Shoe sample sale!

Mui Wo has never seen so much excitement. Sample sale of Italian shoes... be still my heart!

The shoes are being sold guerilla-shop style by Octavia, who lives in Luk Tei Tong. Her brother is in the fashion business. They buy the samples from Italy and ship them back once a year so she gets a huge supply of samples to sell in Mui Wo.

Last year, she sold them in the village but this year, she's been lucky enough to get a shop opposite ParkNShop, a few doors away from Renge House. Well, that's lucky for us too.

As I entered, one woman came dashing out, chanting: "Better leave, better leave." Turns out she'd bought 20 pairs already and if she'd stayed any longer, she'd have bought 20 more.

The shoes are priced from HK$50 upwards and, in true bargain fashion, the prices go down the more pairs you buy.

Those funky boots you see above were HK$350... but, as most things there are one-off, I doubt you'll be seeing those in the shop anymore because I bought them.

Octavia will open the store till May 1, or until she runs out of stock.

Flea fi fo fun!

I love flea markets. And were it not for Buffalo Wilbur, who acts as a clutter police, our flat would be filled to the brim with things nobody else wants.

Mui Wo could do with a charity shop, I think. It has everything necessary for an Oxfam or Salvation Army shop: well-to-do charity-minded wives and a ready pool of buyers (yours truly especially).

So of course, when I saw a sign advertising a flea market at Epiphany Church, I was excited. The strange thing was, the sign looked new but the date was 2009... so when exactly was it?

Turned out it was yesterday and today – and I was just in time to catch the last of the bargains.

The good thing about turning up half an hour before closing time, though, is you get a lot of stuff further marked down. I got a lovely Zara tweed skirt and Ralph Lauren silk shirt for HK$10 for two and three woolly scarves for HK$20.

It really brightened my weekend. Pity the flea market can't be held more often. And I get given ample warning.