Sidewalk Shipping

Our Friday after-work ritual in Hong Kong: Head up to the trendy Wyndham Street area, with its outdoor restaurants, wine bars and coffee houses, and ring in the weekend with a good glass of red wine and a cold draft beer! Wyndham Street is very much a local area, catering mostly to expats and Westerners, so much so that we almost feel like we're starting our weekend in one of our favorite New York City haunts!

But there's one thing along Wyndham Street that you won't find in NYC - "Sidewalk Shipping" - and it's the source of endless entertainment for us as we wind down from the week! Setting up shop right outside our favorite outdoor restaurant, Sidewalk Shipping operates daily and is open right through the close of business on Friday afternoons, making themselves scarce just as the happy hour hordes descend!

Despite their headquarters on the sidewalk, the Sidewalk Shippers are highly efficient and consummate professionals. They receive package drop-offs, wrap, tape and label them, affix the appropriate paperwork, and get them back onto the truck, which swings by about once every half hour. The Shippers come armed with bubble wrap, packing tape, cardboard shipping boxes, pens and markers, all carried in plastic crates and set up with the greatest organizational skill right on the sidewalk. On inclement weather days, there's an overhang they can crouch under with their protective tarps, but mostly they're right out on the curb, wrapping, packing and labeling, always with an eye out for the next truck coming down the hill.

Nobody bothers or disturbs them; in fact, they've become a fixture on this particular slice of sidewalk real estate. Who knows if they're required to have a license to operate in their outdoor offices, but we've never seen a policeman write them a ticket or shoo them away. They even dare to save a parking spot for their truck with large rolling carts, and nobody seems to mind! We always wonder what could possibly be in the packages they ship. Who would trust Sidewalk Shippers, right? But based on the number of trucks dropping off and picking up their deliveries, it seems to be quite a legitimate operation. Plus, we calculate with their lack of overhead, they must be dirt cheap!

For the moment we're satisfied to sit back and watch the Sidewalk Shippers efficiently pack and send out their inventory, and we'll make a trip to the post office when we want our things sent overseas. But there may come a day when, on our way up to Wyndham Street for a Friday night cocktail, we might just take a chance and drop off a box or two to be wrapped up, taped down, and sent out with a label marked "Delivered By Sidewalk Shipping!"