STARBUCKS gone RETRO!! ;) *Pic Heavy*

Hi girlies and the little curious tourist in you :) today I'm straying off a bit from the topic of makeup and onto food and history. I promise it won't be boring - because this Starbucks store I"m going to show you in this post, you won't see it anywhere else but Hong Kong, guaranteed. I have no affiliations with Starbucks, but I thought it'd be interesting to show how "Glocal" Starbucks have gone.

This particular Starbucks is located at the heart of the city - Central and adopts a Bing-Sutt (literally Ice-House) design. Ice-house is equivalent to ice-tea-house, the average local restaurant you go to and get your stomach cured. Fast and Cheaply. To see how 'glocal' this Starbucks have gone, click here for a glimpse of how local restaurants in Hong Kong *used* to look like :)

A poster that said "Chocolate and coffee is served - cold or hot".
You may wonder what food is sold at this Starbucks: egg tarts, cha-siu pastries etc. These are local snacks, they made it so awfully inedible. Please go to any other local restaurants to try typical Hong Kong fast food/snacks OKAY :)?
Old style clock and menu:
A sign that says "please take photos randomly/take as much photos as you want". (Since other Starbucks don't allow you to take photos inside their store. You will be given a crossed face if you do, haha) So this store is photographiles- and tourist-friendly.
Menu displayed on a column's wall. Yes, Chinese words can be written vertically and horizontally! The walls are made with old-style window-panes painted in navy green. Very 60s-70s.
Cooking utensils from the past:
Paper boardgames - used to play them when I was little.
Retro toys:
Retro stationary:
Tea cups and a cigarette-ash spinner:
Toys and bowls from the old days:


The good old days being brought here:

a hot pineapple bun (with a small piece of butter taken out from a fridge) and a cold milk tea. This bun is a famous local snack. It is the hotness and the coldness that earned its popularity.

Notice the hanging-fan on the ceiling - so retro but still in use (at least my high school had it)
The red sign far off: from a pawn shop. Pawn shops are where people bring valuable belongings and 'pawn' them for cash-ins when they're in financially difficult situations. When they got through the difficulty they will come back to the shop with more money than he has taken away, and 'pawn' for their belongings back. Basically, you bring a watch/gold necklace/jewelery there in exchange for money, and a while later you go back there with money and take away your stuff. (For those who're curious about this neon street sign, CNN has a special feature on this traditional pawning profession.)

Papercut figures - lives of people in all walks of life. The words painted in white at the background is the old style of street advertisement, you found them in lamp boxes on the street, walls, anywhere but not now. Haha the words represent the 'profession' (doctors, pipe-plumbers, etc) and the numbers represent the phone numbers you dial to call for these services.

Old style calendar (think my grandmother still uses this at her home), above the calendar is a plate painted with chinese drawings. And next to it is a small retro-style fan located above a cupboard storing kitchen utensils. Folded table on the left.
Menu in Chinese and English hid under the glass panel on the eating table :) like most menus which appear in any other local restaurants (even up to now!)

Old-fashioned standup electrical fan:
Layout of the chairs and tables:
Looking at the paper-cut cartoon figures mimicking life in Hong Kong in the past - social caricatures who reflect the colonial era. ( ^_^In case you didn't know, Hong Kong was under British colonial rule until 1997)

A birdcage hung on the ceiling - you will see this in old-fashioned chinese tea houses, but they don't allow birds /birdcages to be brought inside nowadays.

Look carefully at the last pic ;) if it isn't clear, click to enlarge, LOL!

This post is longer than I expected, if you have read up to here, thanks for your time! :D

I'm thinking of doing some posts on photos I took from traveling in Europe (city by city), and would love to know what all of you think!

(My previous travel post to Greece HERE, click this link and you won't regret it I assure you. I highly recommend you to check this island out!)