TKO to Clearwater and Back: Hong Kong Series: Part 2
Hong Kong City Series · Part II
Clearwater Bay & Tseung Kwan O
I don't come to Hong Kong for the skyline. I come to see what the city is doing next — and to bring some of it home.
After Wan Chai, I moved east. Out past the density, past the harbor views everyone photographs, into the parts of Hong Kong that don't make the standard itinerary. First: Clearwater Bay, one of the city's best beaches. Then: Tseung Kwan O, a new town that tells you exactly where Hong Kong — and urban Asia — is heading.
Clearwater Bay
Getting here requires effort. Minibus 103M from Tseung Kwan O Station, winding roads, forested hills. That effort is the only reason this beach isn't overrun.
Clearwater Bay Second Beach — clean water, good sand, and just far enough away.
I arrived on a weekend and walked straight into a Holi festival. Colored powder everywhere, music, families — South Asian communities who've made Hong Kong home, celebrating on a beach framed by mountains. You couldn't plan a scene like that.
An accidental Holi on the sand. The best travel moments are the unplanned ones.
The beach is genuinely good — fine white sand, proper lifeguard towers, shark nets, a real crowd mix of hikers, families, teenagers. No pretense about being a resort. That's the appeal.
Tower No. 2, watching the South China Sea.
Plastic chairs at the bus stop above. Very Hong Kong.
The bus stop above the beach — four people on white plastic garden chairs, phones out, waiting patiently for the minibus back — is one of my favorite images from this trip. A beautiful beach at the end of a long ride, and nobody complaining about the commute.
"That friction is the last thing keeping Clearwater Bay from being overrun."
If you want a half-day that completely resets your sense of this city — go.
Tseung Kwan O & PopCorn Mall
From the beach, I doubled back to TKO. The district is built on reclaimed land, nearly 400,000 residents and growing, and its anchor is PopCorn Mall — 345,000 square feet sitting directly on top of the MTR station. First thing you step into when you arrive.
The PopCorn atrium — gold slats, good light, and a mall that feels designed rather than assembled.
Walking through PopCorn is quietly instructive. The mix of brands here — local Hong Kong labels alongside global names — tells you how this city sees itself: as a bridge. Between China and Southeast Asia. Between what's local and what wants to go global. I always leave with notes.
Bakery
SimplyLife
SimplyLife — French bakery energy, Chinese afternoon tea ritual.
I didn't go in. But I stopped to watch, and that was enough. Every table inside was occupied by older locals — seniors catching up over coffee, the way you'd see at a French boulangerie on a Tuesday morning in Paris. Except this is a mall in the New Territories, and the bread is European, and the ritual is very much Chinese afternoon tea.
That translation is exactly what makes it work. SimplyLife isn't pretending to be French. It's taking something French and making it deeply, naturally Hong Kong.
Coffee Roastery & All-Day Dining
NINETYs Coffee Roastery
The NINETYs counter — prices on the wall, no explanation needed.
This one pulled me in. The counter is sharp — black signage, gold type, three prices on the wall: Black 35, White 45, Filter 98. No menu board the size of a billboard. No seasonal nonsense. Just coffee, done seriously.
But what I didn't expect were the waffles. Proper ones — the kind that make you reconsider every waffle you've had before. Crisp outside, soft inside, served with intention. That combination of world-class specialty coffee and a waffle done right is rare. NINETYs pulls it off.
The dining room — built for the meal after the coffee.
The dining room behind the counter stretches long and warm — wood-slatted ceiling, leather banquettes, the kind of space that makes you stay longer than planned. They serve Australian-modern cuisine with an Asian sensibility, and the whole thing is better than it has any right to be inside a mall. Branches now in Taiwan and Sydney. Worth every seat.
Menswear
DETERMINANT
DETERMINANT — modern workwear that knows exactly what it is.
The storefront stopped me — navy, white, precise. Inside: clean modern workwear, the kind of pieces that make a professional's wardrobe feel intentional without trying too hard. Dress shirts, polos, trousers — all built with actual function in mind. Wrinkle-free fabrics, proper fit across 61 size combinations because they understood, early, that Asian men have never been served well by standard Western sizing.
This is the kind of brand Manila's working professional would love if it were here. It probably will be, eventually. They're already in Singapore.
Tech Accessories
CASETiFY
Inside CASETiFY — a lot to take in, handled with remarkable ease.
I kept taking videos in here because of how the store runs. The floor is heavy — hundreds of cases, collaboration collections, accessories covering every wall of a curved, pod-like space. It could easily feel overwhelming. But the staff are trained to approach only when you actually need them. No hovering. No pitch. They let you move through freely, absorb at your own pace, and only step in when invited.
That's hard to do. Most retail gets it wrong. CASETiFY gets it exactly right, and it makes the whole experience feel like browsing rather than being sold to. A Hong Kong brand, born 2011, now global — and still quietly nailing the floor experience.
Southeast Asian Food
ASAM Chicken Rice
ASAM — the storefront alone justifies the stop.
Love ASAM. Period.
The design is beautiful — dark fluted wood, warm gold signage, ceramic tile panels that look hand-illustrated. It looks like a heritage hawker stall that found a very good interior designer. Inside: Hainanese chicken rice, Laksa, Beef Rendang, Penang shrimp noodles. Southeast Asian soul food done with full seriousness.
Every time I eat here, I think: Manila needs more of this. Not a version of it. This. The real flavors of our region, presented with care and confidence, in a setting that treats the cuisine with the respect it deserves. We have the demand. We just need someone bold enough to build it.
What I Always Leave With
Hong Kong is where I come to take notes on what's coming. The brands here — built locally, scaled regionally, positioned globally — are a map of where the rest of Asian retail and food culture is heading. SimplyLife reading its Chinese audience perfectly. NINETYs proving that a specialty coffee roastery can also have the best waffle in the mall. DETERMINANT solving the Asian fit problem before anyone else thought it was worth solving. CASETiFY teaching the world how to run a retail floor without friction.
And ASAM, reminding me every visit that Southeast Asian cuisine deserves a bigger stage — starting at home.
Next stop: still Hong Kong. More from this series soon.
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