Clutching weekend tote-bags at Kai Tak airport, we clamber into separate taxis. I indicate where I want to go - the Nikko Hotel - by pointing to a red blob on a Japanese map of Kowloon. Vivian, the 'mainlander', gives her driver the same instructions in Putonghua.
We arrive five minutes apart. I am charged $47 plus $5 for the luggage, even though the bag has not been placed in the boot. After I refuse to pay the extra charge, the driver yells: 'Next time, sit on the outside. Or you can walk to the airport.' Vivian has troubles of her own because her driver has taken an extra-long route to the hotel. The fare? $70.
The Nikko Hotel supposedly has different prices for Japanese and non-Japanese guests. Though the hotel's spokesperson, Christine Yue Man-ting, declares that 'everyone is charged the same', she acknowledges that many rooms are block-booked through tour operators and that few checks are performed.
Even if Japanese - who make up 70 per cent of the Nikko's guests - are not being cheated, they probably return home with a big hole in their pockets if they shop in the hotel's boutiques.
At one that carries glam leisure wear, I see a genuine Japanese tourist being sold a beaded denim shirt for the shop's 'lowest price' of $1,200. Minutes later, Vivian talks down the price for an almost-identical shirt. Her price: $900.
At a handbag shop in the same strip of hotel shops, both of us manage to bargain a simple, synthetic Prada handbag to $3,900 from its ticket price of $6,000.