Single woman in Hong Kong!

Yes! I am a single woman in Hong Kong!

Well, for four hours fifteen minutes, anyway.

Sadly, I do not spend the time productively, not even managing a search for cheap men and even cheaper booze down old Wan Chai.

I decide to go shopping. Which means I stagger about Queen's Road Central for a bit, staring at the buildings and wondering why the voices in my head have gone, then I wander about dazed for two hours in Sogo, half-heartedly trying to part with a gift voucher worth $100 (about a tenner).

Sogo, for those who do not know it, is a Japanese department store. It is built for people who are the height of a domestic rabbit (probably also explains why the buttons on Japanese electronic goods are the size they are).

Because the place is built for rabbits, or gnomes, or hobbits, or very teeny, tiny Japanese people, if you are a BigFatWesterner like me (5foot 4ins), then you have to crawl around this hobbity store mostly on all fours.

I bet it is designed this way to make the tiny people feel at home, as if you are in the cosy comfort of your own warren: narrow passages, floor to ceiling less than the cupboard space under the stairs, product stocked top to bottom, and miniature escalators up and down like moving tunnels conveniently placed around your burrow.

But it seems to have bypassed everyone's attention, probably because they are too busy crawling around looking for a way out, that all the products in Sogo are priced at least 30% above normal prices. The only item I could find under $100 was a pencil case with a teddy bear face. Then I decided the best way to use $100 was in discount, maybe if I handed over $15,000 in exchange for a Vivienne Westwood purse.

Dig is glad I came to my senses just before the handover, but as I explained to him, after you have spent two hours locked in a rabbit warren with 20,000 tiny people, then $15,000 for a bit of folded cow skin with a embossed orb on it seems reasonable if it justifies your presence in the burrow and secures your escape.

But the afternoon shopping time spent all alone was not entirely wasted (even though my Bone Lady was shut). On a street market in Central I bought a large wheely bag suitable for check-in luggage.

I expect we will soon see why it cost a mere $168.