Best Places to Shop in Hong Kong: Try These Famous Hong Kong Malls and Markets for Great Shopping

I'm a shopaholic, so when I finally managed to visit Hong Kong, the first thing I wanted to do was start buying. Luckily, I was with a friend who knew someone from Hong Kong and he immediately told us the best places to shop and what to buy there. Everything is available in Hong Kong, from designer brands to fakes, electronics to trendy clothes and accessories, gold to Chinese snacks to herbal medicines and beyond. Hong Kong is also wonderful because it's quite compact and not difficult to get around on the fabulous public transportations system, so shopping becomes even easier. If you're planning on visiting Hong Kong and like shopping too, don't miss shopping at the following places - you'll kick yourself if you do.

Festival Walk - Festival Walk is an enormous shopping mall near Kowloon Tong train station and I liked it because they have a great Marks & Spencer's store (M&S is a famous British shop with awesome quality clothing), and an H&M shop too. You can also get some excellent Hong Kong food at one of the many restaurants and food stalls at Festival Walk, or a coffee at a mall coffee shop.

Mong Kok - Mong Kok is one of the best places in Hong Kong for shopping because of the huge variety of things and the cheap prices. Mong Kok is a big shopping and office area on Kowloon, where you can get awesome prices on just about everything. Ladies' Market is the famous little market here that sells women's clothing, accessories and make up. I bought a very cute t shirt here for only a couple of dollars, and the quality was so good that, two years later, it's still going strong. Also, check out Bird Garden, where there are hundreds of little birds in cages at the market, and the Flower Market, which as it suggests, is where you'll find some of Hong Kong's beautiful floral wares. If you're looking for bargains on computers too, go to Mong Kok Computer Centre, which has great prices on laptops and peripherals. You can get to Mong Kok easily from the Mong Kok East MTR train station.

Harbour City - Harbour City is another large Hong Kong shopping mall located, of course, right next to the harbour. There's around 700 shops and 50 restaurants and the one thing I loved about this place was it wasn't crowded, so it was easy to check out each shop carefully. It has the largest Toys R Us shop in Asia, some cool sports shops with every style of running shoe imaginable and, if you like designer suits, don't forget to check out the Ted Baker shop. Harbour City is right next to the Star Ferry on Kowloon so, for only about 20 cents, you can head over from Hong Kong and shop to your heart's content. Plus, if you like seafood, I highly recommend Super Star Seafood - fresh seafood cooked perfectly and the prices, for Hong Kong, weren't too high.

The Peak - You have to check out The Peak if only for the fact that it's the coolest tram ride ever up to the top and the view of Hong Kong from up there is unbelievable. There's a small mall at the top with some cute boutiques and designer shops as well as one or two decent restaurants (some with amazing views of Hong Kong). I bought some high-priced designer chocolate at Aji-Ichiban (expensive but so delicious), and a shirt at U2. On the way back, don't forget to wander around the Peak Tram Historical Gallery that tells you all about the history of The Peak, the tram and Hong Kong. It's free too if you've ridden the tram!

SOHO - South of Hollywood Road (So Ho), SOHO was my absolute favorite place in Hong Kong. SOHO features the world's longest outdoor escalator system, and populated with cool restaurants, bars, boutiques, art galleries and shops. Homeless, which is what they call a 'lifestyle' store, sells bric-a-brac, lighting, baskets, furniture and accessories from some of the coolest household designers everywhere. Don't miss too Fang Fong, with some of the hippest clothing in Hong Kong, Buttonhole that has chic fashionable Italian clothing and lovely little bags from Japan, and Indigo, Hong Kong's best jeans shop.

Hong Kong's Street Markets - Stanley Market, which used to be an old fishing village, has scores of market stalls selling clothing, artwork, silk, handicrafts, and some excellent restaurants if you want to take a food break. Also, check out Temple Street Night Market if you want a true Hong Kong experience complete with stalls of fortune tellers, great street food, and stalls selling everything from clothing and jewelry to CDs, DVDs and bags. For antiques, make sure you check out Hollywood Street, the antique capital of Hong Kong with shops as well as outside stalls and, if you do, run into the Man Mo temple - a big Chinese temple stuffed with people leaving incense and prayers. The most interesting area for markets is around Dried Seafood Street and Ko Shing Street. Here you'll find stalls selling every kind of dried seafood, herbal medicines, ginseng, bird's nests, fruit, vegetables and packaged and loose Chinese teas. While I was there, there were also a couple of Sunday street fair's around this area, where I bought some handmade earrings and some Chinese candy.

Hong Kong is a wonderful city not only for shopping but for the fact that it's so compact you can walk from one shopping area right into another. At the same time, Hong Kong's history and architecture is fascinating and every street has interesting buildings, old doorways, small temples, little bars and restaurants and typical Hong Kong-Chinese life just going on around you.