We didn't realize how perfect our little Tin Wan neighborhood would be for us when we decided to stay at abeo (click here to read about our Hong Kong accommodations). Tin Wan (traditional Chinese: 田灣) is a place at the south of Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong. It is at the west of Aberdeen and the east of Kellett Bay (Wah Fu Estate).
Within a few steps we have lots of buses taking us to Central, Quarry Bay, Kowloon, Stanley...just about everywhere. And we have little sanpan boats taking us to Ap Lei Chau across the bay. We have a number of eateries and even some restaurants. Click here to read all of our Metropolitan Hong Kong Restaurant Reviews by ALEDM, including our restaurant reviews for Tin Wan, Aberdeen and Ap Lei Chau. We have two of the supermarket chains: Park 'n Shop and Wellcome, as well as all kinds of shops. Better still there aren't lots of gweilo (foreigners) around.
We have our favorite fruit stands and vegetable stands and people (of course) recognize us. Our little town has a wet market with meat and fish as well as a part for clothes where we found a seamtress to do our mending jobs. Our little town has a temple called Tam Kung Yea Temple, and a pocket park. Our town also has a huge cemetary and a columbaria (buildings designed to house cremation urns) on the hill above the town.
The shops seem to be individually owned and the owners work 7 days a week from early morning until 8 or 9 p.m. each night. It looks like these are very hard-working people. We also have individuals who seem to specialize in collecting certain types of garbage, such as the ones with carts collecting cardboard.
In Tin Wan there is also the Fisheries Education Center, at 100A Shek Pai Wan Road. It has a great exhibit on the fishing industry in Hong Kong. There is also a Fisheries Officer who speaks English named MAK Yiu-ming (e-mail: ym_mak@afcd.gov.hk) who will answer quesstions. We were fascinated by the boats coming into the Aberdeen Fish Market that look like transport vessels rather than fishing boats. Indeed they are.
Invariably, when we walk on Tin Wan Street to the Kai Bo Supermarket we see a Rolls Royce being serviced in the tiny Tin Wan Auto Services shop next door. The first time we saw it, we couldn't believe our eyes. Our Tin Wan neighborhood is the opposite of flashy. It's a solid middle class area, and we even have an estate that's supposed to be affordable. We figure that the mechanic at Tin Wan Auto must be known far and wide. There is also a much larger Jaguar/Toyota/Mazda service center called Inchcape in Tin Wan.
The drawing card for us at Kai bo Supermarket is wine for HK$28. We love the varietal called Carmenere from Chile and we saw a La Fortuna Carmenere at Kai bo. It is excellent and for the price cannot be beat. For the same price La Fortuna Malbec and Chardonnay are sold which are also excellent. Amazing!
If we walk for 5 minutes we get to the much larger town of Aberdeen where the wholesale fish market is. The activity there is 7 days a week and it is really fun to look down from our apartment at the beehive of activity there. Walking through the market is not as much fun as we thought because it is really busy and really wet: there is constantly flowing water (which helps to keep the place clean).
There is everything in Aberdeen, including a piazza where people just hang.
Aberdeen center has a plaza where the locals gather
Also from Aberdeen we access our local hiking trail: the Hong Kong Trail from Peel Rise.
One of the things that I thought that I could do (affordably) in Hong Kong was to change the stem of my pearl earrings. In the past, I lost one of my pearl earrings when I took off a shirt (forgetting that I am wearing them) and the shirt caught the pearl and flung it away (never to be found). I wanted the stem of the earrings to be screw on and thus they would then be less likely to detatch from the "back" (called a clutch or ear nut). I checked with many jewelry shops around Hong Kong, after I determined that the jewelry shop where I had bought my screw on diamond stud earrings was no longer in business. Most had not seen a screw back for pierced earrings and were not willing to get involved. In Aberdeen I found Hung Fook Jewellery Co. (G/F, 171Q Kam Fung Building, Aberdeen Main Road, Aberdeen, H.K., tel. 2555-1138. It's actually on the street behind the Aberdeen Post Office at the corner of Tung Sing Rd. and Sai On Street). Joyce Tsai made a call and quoted a price of HK$500/US$64.93. That was within the range I was willing to spend. I don't know how much my pearl earrings cost originally but, even though I really like them, I stopped wearing them, fearing I'd lose one. Even replacing them wasn't an option because new ones didn't seem to have screw on stems anyway. So I had Hung Fook Jewellery do the job. When they first came back, the stem was too long and had to be re-done with a shorter stem that wouldn't stab me. Joyce Tsai at Hung Fook was patient and had the stems re-done. Even when they returned the final time, the person that Joyce called the Master (who came especially while I was at the shop), had to cut a little off of the stems to make them the length I wanted. I was thrilled with the result and began wearing the pearl earrings all of the time!
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