The Shanghai Tang Competition

Shanghai Tang ...

 the most beautiful store on the planet 

- only Harvey Nichols comes close- 

... is having a competition with prizes for those folks who correctly guess where their new flagship store is to be.

I MUST take part. I don't know the answer but I'm about to make finding out my mission.  Yes, I know it's all a publicity exercise but I simply cannot resist anything Shanghai Tang ... and to win anything beautiful and free is definitely my idea of bliss.

If you don't already know, Shanghai Tang's flagship in Pedder Building on Pedder Street is no more. What happened was that in the middle of 2011 the American company Abercrombie and Fitch offered the landlord 2 1/2 times the rent and the totally disloyal lessor jumped at it, throwing out the most beautiful shop you've ever seen.  Ah, you should have seen the vicious HK blogs on the subject.

It made me very cross at the time because, well, David Tang - the lovely fellow who started Shanghai Tang - is a local Hong Konger who possibly created the current distinctive and beautiful HK aesthetic whereas the other company is American and sells an aesthetic that is entirely NOT Hong Kong. I shudder to think what HK kids will start to look like once A&F opens its doors. Downtown Harlem?

And it was also wrong because David Tang was the fellow who saved the beautiful Pedder Building from the wrecking ball. And now it's this wonderful distinctive old building in among the glass-plate high-rise and so DESIRABLE some random Yank comes along and usurps it from him.

 And the usurpers aren't even using 

HK's traditional bamboo scaffolding 

during the renovation. 

Talk about Neo-Colonialism in action!

It's all so sad. Oh lordy, you should have seen the interior of Shanghai Tang: all Shanghai 1930s opium den decor with wonderful mosaics and coloured glass and carved dark wood. It was all so to-die-for, I do hope they recycled.

Anyway, Shanghai Tang - making a sino-fashion-statement out of the ousting - is currently to be found trading out of yurts on the roof of a ferry pier in Central:

Shanghai Tang Mongolian Village
Rooftop, 

Lamma Island Ferry, 

Pier 4 (walking distance from IFC Mall.)
Central, Hong Kong

... but now they want folks to guess where they'll be moving to next.  With prizes for folks who guess correctly.

Since I cannot resist taking part I've been trawling through cyberspace looking for hints and I think I've found enough to know where to start looking: it'll be somewhere in Central and I think I've got to keep my eye out for an old four-storey granite building that is currently under scaffolding.

And if I manage to locate it, I will most definitely be taking photos.  However, I may not be showing them to you.  Hey, it's Shanghai Tang. I'm after the prize for myself.