I was in a lift in Mirador Mansion, travelling up to the 13th floor, when a softly-spoken Hong Konger, with flecks of silver dye in his hair, spoke to me.
“Why do you want to stay here?” he said, eyeing my large and frustratingly-heavy suitcase.
I wasn’t too sure how to reply and, before I was able to get any words out at all, he followed up: “This place is dirty and noisy. It’s not safe. It may be cheap but there are plenty of other places you could be staying.”
Mirador Mansion is right in the heart of Tsim Sha Tsui, or TST has it is more commonly known.
“Er,” I mumbled non-committedly. “I don’t know.”
Only I did know. It wasn’t just that the accommodation where I was staying (Celltronik Hotel) was cheap – although, with the room costing me more than HK$700 a night, I slightly questioned this assertion. It was that TST has soul. It has character. And it has some great local food options.
Mind you, it was only the following day that I was relaxed enough to reflect on all the good points about staying in TST. I had had a bit of an ordeal to get here, to be honest, before I finally hauled my weary body into bed at nearly 1am.
My ordeal started around 8.30pm, when I turned up at another local hotel (Hang Ho Hostel), which was located slightly further along Nathan Road.
It took me more than hour to locate anyone that could help me check in, and when I eventually did, I found that they had given my room to someone else. Some frantic toing and froing with Booking.com ensued, with me getting more and more concerned about the lateness of the hour and the fact that there didn’t seem to be any single hotel nearby within my budget that had availability.
Booking.com eventually found me Celltronik Hotel, which I have to stay was quite a nice place to stay. It wasn’t dirty. It wasn’t particularly noisy. And I certainly didn’t find it unsafe.
Admittedly, when I did eventually turn up at Celltronik, I wasn’t feeling all that warm towards TST, but to be fair this wasn’t really TST’s fault. When I woke up the following morning, I had that electric buzz of being a traveller in a new place. Even though I had spent eight years living in Hong Kong, and knew TST extremely well.
Yes, I could have stayed in a fancier hotel somewhere else, but I wouldn’t have felt the same rush of excitement as I did staying somewhere more local.
So here are 10 reasons why you might want to consider going local in TST:
- A great local vibe.
- Feel less like a tourist, more like an explorer.
- This is where many of the best museums are located: The Science Museum, The Museum of History, The Space Museum.
- Ride the iconic Star Ferry, between Hong Kong Island and TST, to your heart’s content.
- Amazing local restaurants, with some of the best chili crab that you will find anywhere in Hong Kong.
- Some decent international restaurants here, too. Just head along nearby Mody Road. Well-known British chefs Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay both used to have good restaurants here, but they have both since closed down.
- There is also arguably the best ice-cream place in the whole of Hong Kong in TST. We wrote a review about it.
- So many interesting back streets to explore.
- Kowloon Park is a great place to get away from the hustle-and-bustle of city life. It has flamingos, too.
- So many interesting markets to explore: Goldfish Market, Flower Market, Bird Garden, Night Market, Ladies Market…