I'd been given a mission from back home, a seemingly simple one - to bring back a bamboo steamer. What was casually requested, rather offhand, soon descended into a mini frenzy of obsessed madness, as simply popping out to get a steamer in Hong Kong isn't as quite easy as you might think it to be.
Hong Kong is no longer a place where these things are made, and had it been any city in China it might have been a fairly simple request to make.
Luckily, the hotel had fabulous internet, and I read up on a charming little local family business - the last of its kind in Hong Kong - which supplies local restaurants (and annoying tourists, like myself) with homemade bamboo wares.
And so I spent my last morning in Hong Kong trekking across town to Tuck Chong Sum Kee Bamboo Steamer Company. Much to my delight and relief, it was still there (some of the articles I'd found online were quite a few years old).
Tuck Chong Sum Kee was a charming little store full of amazing handmade bamboo steamers, moulds and other knick-knacks, making my brand new, homemade bamboo steamer the perfect souvenir to bring home - and one with a story, too! read more