The Annual July 1 March

It took us over an hour and a half to walk out of Causeway Bay

Today is Canada Day and HKSAR day... the 21st anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland. The best way to celebrate? March in protest against the Hong Kong government!

When we arrived at Victoria Park from the Tin Hau MTR station, the football pitches were set up for a pro-Beijing Hong Kong Celebrations Association featuring a lion dance exhibition with many tents, but hardly anyone there. There was a joke that people were being paid to show up there.

Calls were made to free Liu Xia from house arrest

Meanwhile next to the pitches is a lawn area that wasn't full, but had a few thousand people already gathered. Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor was there -- in the form of a cardboard cut out, while other people held up banners for their specific causes. A significant one demanded that Liu Xia, the wife of Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo be freed from house arrest.

Almost as soon as we arrived, organizers encouraged us to leave at 3pm on the dot, walking towards Tin Hau and then turning right onto Hennessy Road. Getting out of Victoria Park was OK, and at the beginning we walked quite quickly.

But soon we came to a complete stop and crawled along Hennessy Road. In fact it took an hour and a half just to walk out of Causeway Bay and into Wan Chai. Weather-wise it was slightly overcast, with periodic breezes which was nice. For a few seconds some raindrops fell.

Carrie Lam made a flat appearance...

When we were near the shopping mall Hysan Place, we could actually feel the cold air from the air conditioning blasting from the mall! There were some policemen who posted themselves right by the mall entrance to benefit from the air conditioning...

Periodically someone on loud speakers would encourage marchers to chant slogans, but for the most part the street was lined with political parties and social groups soliciting for donations which got a bit too much.

We saw people like Lee Cheuk-yan of the Labour Party, League of Social Democrats' Lau Siu-lai who was ousted from the Legislative Council, and Joshua Wong Chi-fung of Demsisto give speeches and then less than an hour later we saw them again in Wan Chai. It wasn't just political parties, but every other cause under the sun, from human rights, to animal rights, saving Lantau, to recycling and stop shopping. Domestic helpers demanded more money and there was even a group supporting North Korean defectors.

The constant barrage of voices on microphones was nauseating, combined with the heat and having to walk slow wasn't much fun. We were also joined by the Falun Gong which was awkward.

Strangely the Falun Gong joined us with drums

We could hear a marching band behind us and it was a coordinated group of people in blue and yellow satin outfits, banging on drums and playing trumpets, clarinets and saxophones wearing white gloves. We didn't want to be associated with them, but they were marching at a good pace that made us jealous!

Nevertheless, by the time we got to Admiralty, things were looking up and we were walking at a good pace to the border with Central and then we turned right to make a loop towards Tamar. Here we were stopped so that cars could go by and behind me I could see lots of people waiting like us.

Organizers estimated around 50,000 people, lower than last year, but my friend YTSL begs to differ as she has marched every year in the last several years. She says definitively that this year there were many more people than last year, which organizers had said 60,000 people showed up.

So how could this year only be 50,000?! The police had the gall to say only 9,000 people marched.

When we reached Tamar, we were actually allowed to go into Civic Square, which was a strange sensation as it had always been locked up during then leader Leung Chun-ying's time. It was a bit of an anti-climax ending the march here and then having to wait for the rest of the marchers to come before a rally would be held.

I decided to leave early and went home, sweaty and tired, but happy to be counted with the discontented.

Retailers Change Their Tune

Did hot men result in hotter sales for Abercrombie & Fitch in Hong Kong?

A few years ago luxury brands muscled their way into prime retail locations in Hong Kong, which had the domino effect of unsympathetically pushing out mom-and-pop stores that had been there for decades.

This kind of gentrification was not welcomed by Hong Kong people -- these boutiques selling expensive fashion, jewellery and watches were catered towards mainland tourists, not the local population.

It got to the point where there were regular reports in the paper about this noodle shop closing, or that bakery shuttering because of exorbitant rents, and residents rushed to these places for their last bite because it reminded them of their childhood.

I also joked at the time that because all these food shops were closing that we wouldn't have anything left to eat.

Burberry's flagship store in Pacific Place

Abercrombie & Fitch created a stir when it kicked out Shanghai Tang from Pedder Building in Central, and even worse, was willing to pay double the rent at HK$7 million a month.

After the hoopla of having topless men with washboard stomachs (of course) doing publicity stunts around town, did that help sell millions of dollars worth of casual clothes per week?

Then there was Burberry that took over the space previously occupied by Lane Crawford in Pacific Place in Admiralty, that caused a chain reaction -- Lane Crawford then moved across the street to Queensway, uprooting a number of small shops that had occupied that area.

But now some of these brands are having their comeuppance, as mainland shoppers are not keen to buy big ticket items in Hong Kong, and instead are looking further afield to outlet stores -- in Europe and Japan where the euro and yen are weak.

Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer is closing its store on the popular Russell Street in Causeway Bay, while luxury group Kering (formerly PPR) founded by Francois Pinault, will be asking for lower rents for its brands like Gucci, Saint Laurent Paris, Boucheron, Bottega Veneta, Stella McCartney and Qeelin.

Kering not only wants to get rent reductions in Hong Kong, but also Macau, and if these requests aren't met, some shops may have to close in the region, according to the company's chief financial officer Jean-Marc Duplaix.

IFC mall in Central is full of luxury brand stores

Following its big gamble of setting up many shop spaces in Hong Kong, Burberry Group is looking for a cut in rent, saying Hong Kong is "a challenging luxury market", while Coach says its weak sales were due to "lower tourist trends from the mainland".

On the other side, big landlords like Hongkong Land says it has received requests to decrease rent, but has refused to, while Cheung Kong Property Holdings that owns 1811 Heritage mall in Tsim Sha Tsui has frozen the rent for three years when leases were up recently.

However luxury mall owners like Sun Hung Kai at IFC mall and Hysan Development at Hysan Place and Lee Gardens have claimed they didn't receive any requests to have cuts in rent.

Chasing the mainland tourist dollar has been a short-sighted strategy all along. While the sheer numbers of visitors across the border cannot be ignored, Hong Kong entrepreneurs should not completely shut out local clientele.

Either way perhaps landlords will finally realize that their greediness was not sustainable long term...

Picture of the Day: Nostalgic Cartoon

The giant Kojiro Hyuga towering everyone at Hysan Place

World Cup fever is starting to heat up with the kick off happening June 12, though in Hong Kong only die-hard fans will be watching, since the games will be played in the middle of the night our time.

If you see some bleary-eyed colleagues come into work or call in sick, you'll know why...

Near Hysan Place in Causeway Bay there's a giant statue of a footballer by the name of Kojiro Hyuga.

If you're a football fan who lived in Hong Kong in the mid-1980s, you'll remember Hyuga starring in a Japanese animated cartoon called Captain Tsubasa on TVB. His Cantonese name is Siu Chi-keung and his friend Ozora Tsubasa (Tai Chi-wai), who were known for their "tiger shots" and "super shots".

And like every other young obsessive footballer, their dream was to play in the World Cup and win the golden trophy...

So does this 5 metre-tall statue created by Adidas bring back fond memories for anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?