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Cheung Kong
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Shop horror

Cheung Kong

The idea of park-and-shop supermarkets hasn't been fully realised in Hong Kong. You can park - usually - and you can shop - always - but rarely is there a seamless connection between the two. If you go to a supermarket, you probably do so because it seems a convenient way to buy a week's groceries. But it's often not that convenient.

Taste in Hang Hau has a wide selection of Chinese, Japanese and Western food and lots of checkouts, shelf-stackers and courteous staff. One recently directed me to the service lift, which led not to the car park but a loading bay across the road. I was there for 15 minutes among delivery lorries and clattering crates and cages being pushed by bemused staff while my partner fetched the car.

The Wellcome in Sai Kung has one ancient lift, which is used by all, so you tussle with crates of comestibles on the way to the car park. But it's better than the town's ParknShop, which is a total misnomer - it has no car park at all.

And what do you do after a big shop at Oliver's in Central? Lug it down a series of escalators into the street, where you can't park or get a cab unless you drag yourself to the taxi rank around the corner and up the street.

Supermarkets are meant to be convenient. Hong Kong has yet to grasp that notion.

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