Cat Street vs Hollywood Road - Which Sheung Wan Antique Street Should You Shop?
The short answer. Shop Cat Street (Upper Lascar Row) for browsing, bargaining, souvenirs and small collectibles. Shop Hollywood Road when you want documented pieces, fine jade, Chinese furniture, or a dealer who will talk you through provenance. The two streets run parallel, one block apart in Sheung Wan, so for most visitors the right answer is both, on the same walk.
Upper Lascar Row and Hollywood Road are not two versions of the same market. They are two different price brackets that happen to share a hillside. Knowing which is which before you climb the hill is the difference between a good afternoon's browsing and an expensive misunderstanding.
Which street for what
Cat Street (Upper Lascar Row) - the browsable end
Cat Street is the popular name for Upper Lascar Row, a pedestrian lane in Sheung Wan that runs parallel to Hollywood Road, one block below it. It is short - about 170 metres - and it is the version of the antique trade you can enjoy without a budget or a plan.
What is actually on the tables: jade pendants and bracelets, ceramics and porcelain, bronze Buddha figures, copper pots, snuff bottles, Chinese coins, old cameras and watches, vintage Hong Kong photographs and postcards, Cultural Revolution memorabilia, propaganda posters and Bruce Lee items - alongside a large quantity of handcrafted replicas that are sold as exactly that.
Prices here are an opening offer, not a fixed tag. Compare the same kind of item across two or three stalls before you commit, and expect the first number you hear to move.
Hollywood Road - the galleries and the serious money
Hollywood Road is the older street - laid out in 1844, which makes it one of Hong Kong's earliest roads - and it runs about a kilometre through Sheung Wan and Central. Where Cat Street has tables, Hollywood Road has shopfronts and galleries. Our Hollywood Road antique district guide covers the street in full.
Their stock is a different register: Ming- and Qing-style furniture, carpets and rugs, lacquerware, bronzes, Han pottery and Tang tomb figures, fine jade, and both traditional and contemporary Chinese painting. Reputable dealers will supply provenance documentation and will explain export requirements - which matters, because China restricts the export of cultural relics, and your destination country's import rules apply to what you carry out of Hong Kong.
This is a street that expects serious buyers. It is also a street you are welcome to walk for free: window-shopping the high end is one of the quiet pleasures of the district.
💡 The ten-second version
Cat Street = antiques, curios and vintage, haggled. Hollywood Road = galleries and fine antiques, priced. One block, two worlds, a couple of minutes apart on foot.
Price tiers: what each street actually costs
Treat the figures below as indicative rather than quoted. The bands overlap, and individual stalls and dealers vary widely by condition, age and provenance. The Antiques & Souvenirs Price Guide breaks those categories down item by item.
Cat Street: souvenir money and collectible money
- Souvenirs and replicas - about HK$30-300. Reproduction porcelain, jade-inspired pieces, postcards, Red Guard badges and small stamped metalwork. This is the band most visitors actually shop in.
- Wearable jade and mid-range collectibles - about HK$300-3,000. Jadeite pendants and bracelets, intact propaganda posters, small bronze figures and retro enamel signage.
- Genuinely old pieces - HK$3,000 into five figures. These exist on Cat Street, but they are the exception rather than the rule. Assume reproduction until someone shows you a reason not to.
Hollywood Road: a different order of magnitude
- Small documented pieces - from roughly HK$3,000. Folk-kiln porcelain, authenticated jade, and smaller works on paper.
- Fine furniture - HK$30,000 into the millions. Ming- and Qing-style pieces are the top of this street's market, and the reason collectors come here at all.
- Museum-grade material - the auction houses, not the street. For anything at that level the auction rooms are the venue; see our auction houses and luxury collecting guide.
The two price systems are the real difference. On Cat Street, treat the asking price as a starting point: haggling is expected, discounts of roughly 20 to 40 per cent are typical, and walking away is a legitimate move. On Hollywood Road, asking prices sit much closer to the final number - haggling room is far narrower, nearer 10 to 20 per cent - and long-established galleries often quote fixed prices. What you pay for on Hollywood Road is not a discount; it is the documentation that comes with the piece. The two discount ranges in this paragraph are our own working estimate, not a survey of measured prices - treat them as a starting position, not an average.
How to get to both - MTR Sheung Wan, Exit A2
Both streets sit on the same hillside, and one MTR exit serves both. Take the Island Line to Sheung Wan Station and leave by Exit A2.
- Exit A2 and walk uphill along Hillier Street.
- Turn right onto Queen's Road Central and head towards Ladder Street.
- Turn left onto Hollywood Road. You are on the antique row, roughly five to eight minutes after leaving the station.
- Cat Street is one block below Hollywood Road, on Upper Lascar Row. Any of the connecting lanes drops you onto it.
Other ways in. From Central, the Central-Mid-Levels Escalator is the scenic route up - ride it partway and cut across, rather than climbing the hill on foot. Bus routes 26 and H1 also stop nearby, and a taxi will drop you on Hollywood Road itself. Coming for the antique trade specifically, Exit A2 is still the one to use.
The walk between them
This is the reason to treat the two as one outing. Upper Lascar Row, Hollywood Road, Man Mo Temple, Tai Kwun and PMQ all sit inside a fifteen-minute walking radius, and the whole circuit is comfortably a half-day.
- Start on Cat Street and browse while the crowds are thin. A weekday from late morning onwards is the safest bet for a full row of open stalls and shops.
- Walk up one block to Hollywood Road and turn towards Man Mo Temple. The contrast is immediate: the same categories of object, in a completely different bracket.
- Man Mo Temple stands on Hollywood Road at the junction with Ladder Street. The incense coils and the quiet interior are worth the stop.
- Continue to Tai Kwun, the former Central Police Station compound, now a heritage and arts precinct with galleries and cafés.
- Finish at PMQ, the converted former Police Married Quarters, now a design and maker hub - and the best place in the district to buy something made locally rather than imported.
If you would rather have the timing worked out for you, our Cat Street luxury cultural walking tour lays out the same route as a timed half-day walk with dining stops.
Opening hours and the best time to go
Cat Street: the lane itself is a public pedestrian way, open around the clock, but the shops and stalls keep business hours - generally 11:00 to 18:00 daily. Individual family-run stalls vary, and some close on Sundays. Full detail is on our Cat Street opening hours page.
Hollywood Road: the galleries keep daytime hours too, broadly late morning to 6 PM, and a fair number stay shut on Sundays and public holidays.
⏰ Best time to go: a weekday afternoon is the safest single answer - the stalls are all out, the galleries are open, and the crowds that make Cat Street slow on a Saturday have not arrived. Weekday mornings are quieter still if you want photographs, though a few vendors will still be setting up.
Is it real? An honest word on authenticity
If you take one thing from this comparison, take this: the two streets are not equally likely to sell you something genuinely old.
Cat Street is, in large part, a market for reproduction and decorative pieces - charming, well priced, and often exactly what you want as a souvenir, but sold on appearance rather than age. Genuine old pieces do surface, and the deeper shops behind the street frontage hold better material than the tables do, but the base rate is not in your favour.
Hollywood Road is where the trade in documented material actually lives. Dealers there will discuss age, provenance and paperwork, and their prices reflect it. If you are buying something you intend to keep, insure or resell, that is the street to be on.
⚠️ Before you buy anything old: China restricts the export of cultural relics, and your destination country's import rules apply to what you carry out of Hong Kong. The Hong Kong rule that catches this market hardest is ivory: since 31 December 2021 the sale of elephant ivory has been banned here, with only pre-1925 antique ivory still tradeable under licence. Reputable Hollywood Road dealers will explain what documentation a purchase needs - ask before you pay, not at the airport. For telling old from new, see our Chinese antiques authentication guide.
Quick answers
Is Cat Street the same as Hollywood Road?
No. Cat Street is the popular name for Upper Lascar Row, a short pedestrian lane. Hollywood Road is the kilometre-long street one block above it. They are separate streets with separate shops, a couple of minutes apart on foot.
Where do you find real antiques?
On Hollywood Road, where documented pieces and provenance live. Cat Street is best for collectibles, curios and souvenirs, and most of what is on offer there is reproduction or decorative rather than genuinely old.
Which is cheaper?
Cat Street, by a wide margin - and unlike Hollywood Road its prices are meant to be haggled. Souvenirs and small collectibles start in the tens of dollars and run into the low hundreds.
How long do you need at each?
Cat Street takes about half an hour to browse properly, longer if you are hunting. Hollywood Road rewards a slow hour or two if you intend to go into the galleries. Budget half a day for both, plus Man Mo Temple and Tai Kwun.
Can you walk between them?
Yes - one block. From Upper Lascar Row any of the connecting lanes takes you up to Hollywood Road in a couple of minutes, and the whole Sheung Wan heritage circuit is walkable in an afternoon.
Where to go next
- Hollywood Road Antique District - complete guide
- Cat Street (Upper Lascar Row) - complete antique shopping guide
- Antiques & Souvenirs Price Guide
- What to buy: ceramics, jade, memorabilia, replicas
- Cat Street luxury cultural walking tour
- Man Mo Temple and Cat Street
- PMQ and the Sheung Wan creative district
- Chinese antiques authentication guide
- How to get to Cat Street
One external source worth having open on your phone: the Hong Kong Tourism Board's page for Upper Lascar Row.