Page One Café

PageOne is everywhere in Hong Kong, but the Festival Walk branch boasts a little café for both book-​buyers and mall-​goers alike. My mother loves to go here with her friends because it’s much quieter and generally ‘calmer’ than other eateries and cafes here — no time limits on how long you can stay, no queues, no hurriedly-​moving servers beating you down with a bill for your table… You also get a ringside view of mall-​goers, as the café is popped up right against the glass panes near the entrance. The café has actually undergone a renovation, and hopefully they revamp the menu — which was a bit of a bore with soggy sandwiches. That said, I did enjoy their selection of teas, which they served in the most adorable glass teapots and tiny glass teacups.
As for books — well, you know the drill. PageOne stocks a range of books, for all age ranges. When I was younger, I would drag my parents up a few steps to the children’s section, a huge corner of the bookstore that ought to be a child’s Festival Walk dream-​spot if it hadn’t been for the PlayStation demonstration that goes on at the MTR level Fortress store… When I got to secondary school, this was the place to go for my English Lit. classic texts and the occasional chick lit to get me excited for my twenties. Cue the twenties and instead of building up an enviable shoe collection like Sophie Kinsella promised (!), I like to head to PageOne for cookbooks and self-​esteem boosting guides.
They also sell a variety of Moleskine organisers, and hipster cameras if you’re cool enough for that sort of thing. I am not. But that’s OK, says my self-​help guide.

Page One at Festival Walk used to be a place that I would lose myself in– not in the literal sense but from a psychological sense. I have been an avid reader from a very young age and one of the problems that I faced was the fact that I developed a tendency to skip through the boring bits and just read the bit I wanted to read. Now this developed an issue with books I actually bought: I tend to finish them very quickly.
To solve this issue, Page One became a sort of refuge for me because in this particular store; everything is meticulously filed and the choices seem to be boundless. As opposed to the other chains in Hong Kong where everything is cling filmed shut, Page One has always adopted a policy of read– all– you like. There seems to be a sample for every book that seems to be on sale. For me this was a god send as I could flip through books hours on end and no one would bat an eyelid. I would then only buy the one that I really liked, problem solved. I was not the only to be there doing that and judging from the kids left in there during holidays and weekends you would think this was a day care centre.
Problem was though, with so much choices around I ended up buying even more books because everything seemed so interesting. they have a full magazine section as well which further enhanced the range of items on sale. Anyways, that was my own problem.
As bookshops go this one would probably top my list as I find the one at Harbourcity way too crowded and less organized. they even have a café there if you stand around too long and get hungry. Nerds– go crazy!