Checking out Wudaoying Hutong

Cars sometimes pass through here, but mostly it's pedestrians

A friend who lives in Beijing recommended that I check out Wudaoying hutong near Yonghegong Lama Temple, as it hasn't been commercialized like Nanluoguxiang hutong.

I remember when Nanluoguxiang was just starting to have shops and it had rough edges to it that gave it some charm.

Does this cat look like he could be Brother Cream's cousin?

But now it's very gentrified, and as my friend says, there are the independent shops there, but there are also ones run by the government that you can tell are trying to push Chinese arts and culture in a Friendship Store 2.0 kind of way.

Having been there twice on my trip, I can attest to that!

So I checked out Wudaoying and I remember I did go there once many years ago to a western restaurant called Vineyard Cafe and it's still there. On the whole Wudaoying is still a residential area with shops down the main strip.

Some are clothing shops selling qipao or Chinese shirts and jackets, some with embroidery, jewellery shops, there are snack shops, mostly cafes, and several pottery shops that have several throwing wheels, where people take classes.

A not very happy looking mud grass horse at Plastered 8!

One of the pottery workshops had a giant fat cat with a bowtie, lazying on the table by the entrance and he could be Brother Cream's Beijing cousin!

A shop called Plastered 8 that opened in Nanluoguxiang also has a store here, and it has pretty funky T-shirts. The store front here includes a sculpture of a caonima, or "grass mud horse", which sounds like a swear word, but it is like giving the finger to internet censorship in China. I think we all feel like that!

On a happier note, we also saw a couple taking wedding photos there, probably the equivalent of Hong Kong couples taking pictures with the tram going by.

A sign indicating the entrance but we started from the back

On the whole it was fun to poke our heads into some of the shops and seeing what was going on. Some of the prices were expensive, some were OK. Although we didn't buy anything, we enjoyed soaking up the laid back atmosphere with a dose of crafts.

Fact of the Day: Microflats Getting Even Smaller

Can you live in a tiny space like this day after day, year after year?

Just when you thought Hong Kong flats couldn't get even smaller, they are.

Emperor International Holdings will have the tiniest flats in the city when it plans to launch a project where each unit measures 61.4 square feet or 5.7 square metres.

One can barely even fit a mattress in that space.

Located at 17-19 Yik Kam Street in Happy Valley, the project -- which is yet to be named -- converts an existing 21-storey commercial building into a residential one.

The unit's current measurement doesn't include the space allocated for a kitchen and bathroom.

But when they are added, the space is still smaller than a project in Jordan called AVA62. There each unit measures 152 square feet -- including a balcony -- selling for HK$20,000 per square foot or HK$3 million.

Microflats are very popular because average home prices have soared beyond the reach of average salary earners, prompting developers to scale down.

And to meet the demand, as many as 5,000 small flats are in in the pipeline every year until 2019, almost triple the average in the last decade.

We get that developers are appealing to investors and first-time buyers to create flats that are somewhat affordable.

But who wants to live in flats like that? What are the psychological effects of living in such tiny spaces?

It can't be good for one's wellbeing...