Peel Street

Peel Street was one of the first thoroughfares - along Cochrane, Wyndham and Aberdeen streets - leading to what is now known as Mid-Levels. In the 1840s, when it was built, it was a sweaty climb up from Queen's Road Central - and it still is, so it's best to explore the street downhill, from the top.

Unlike its rowdy, escalator-lined neighbour, Shelley Street, Peel Street is quiet and a little forgotten. The views from the upper reaches towards the harbour would be San Franciscan if they didn't lead to the rainbow disco lights of The Center.

It was first settled by Westerners but, in the 1870s, most of the homes were sold to Chinese families. By the 1950s, expatriate residents could only be found in significant numbers near Conduit Road.

Wise Mansion, at the top of Peel, next to Robinson Road, sits on a site previously occupied by a villa owned by merchant Wai Siu-pak. Wai made his fortune selling Yee Tin Medical Oil. His Yee Tin Tong pharmacy was famous as far afield as Vietnam and Cambodia.

Instead of fortunes being made, they are now being spent in these parts - on rent. Mandy Leung Yin-man moved her hair salon, DM Hair Workshop, to the corner of Caine and Peel streets in 2006. Like many buildings in the area, the old shopfront needed thousands of dollars in renovations to make it usable. Since then, Leung has seen many of her neighbours forced out. Rents lower down the street run to HK$100,000 per month or more.

'I don't know what they're selling - even if they're selling cocaine, it would be hard to make that much,' Leung jokes.