How to Read a City (Without a Map)
When we arrived in Hong Kong yesterday, we directly took an Uber from the airport to CN Square in Kowloon.
Not Victoria Peak. Not a temple. Not even dim sum (that came after).
Just a nerdy little place for paper and pens—excellent, and hard to leave empty-handed.
And that’s when it clicked: When I travel, I’m not really looking for sights first. I’m always looking for a “third place.”
The term comes from sociology: your first place is home, your second place is work, and the third place is that in-between space where you can exist without needing a reason.
Starbucks famously built a lot of its identity around that idea: consistency, comfort, the same smell and setup wherever you are.
The thing is: I never go to Starbucks.
Not to be edgy. I just don’t like their coffee. And once you’ve had good coffee, it’s hard to un-taste it. But I think I’ve been chasing the same third-place function—just through smaller, more specific doors.
The Search Criteria
In every new city, I do the same two searches:
Specialty coffee
Stationery shops
Coffee is the obvious one. I used to run my own coffee bar. It’s a real passion. I celebrate both filter and espresso the way other people celebrate museums. It’s one of the only rituals I do every single day, no matter where I am. (I even take my coffee grinder and scale with me on vacation).
Met this lovely husband-and-wife team on our last day in Taipei at the Songshan Creative Market. They launched Sip and Shift just a year ago, and the coffee is really nice.
Stationery is the quieter obsession. A good pencil. A notebook with the right paper. Shops like CN Square feel like tiny temples for people who still enjoy analog tools. It’s not practical; it’s a vibe.
It’s also a high-level signal that the neighborhood has taste. After all, you rarely find a world-class fountain pen shop right next to a place selling "I ❤️ HK" neon tank tops. It’s a signal that says: people here value the slow way of doing things. Of embedding a “good kind of friction” consciously into their lives.
The Anatomy of a Third Place
What I like about the third-place concept is that it’s not just “a café” or “a store.” It’s a set of qualities. The original idea describes these spots as neutral, welcoming, accessible, and unpretentious—often with regulars and a playful mood. Basically: a home-away-from-home that you don’t need an invitation for.
That’s exactly what the best specialty coffee shops feel like. Not in a corporate way, but in a human way. You walk in and you can sense the signals:
The Intentionality: Someone cared about the interior (it’s not fancy; it’s chosen).
The Audio: The music isn’t fighting the room.
The Details: The cups don’t look accidental.
The Staff: The barista is either calm, nerdy, or both.
The Pulse: The neighborhood around it usually feels alive.
Great stationery shops do the same. They attract a certain type of person and tend to sit on streets you actually want to walk. They slow you down in a way that makes a new city feel... navigable.
The Pattern
And here’s the best proof that this isn’t just my weird thing: Sina has her own version.
Her third place isn’t coffee or stationery. It’s wool and yarn stores. New city, same move: “Let’s just quickly check that shop.” And suddenly we’re talking about yarn color combinations as if it's the most important conversation of the day.
So maybe the pattern is this: In a new place, we’re not just buying things. We’re finding a starting point. A small, familiar room that helps a big, unfamiliar city feel understandable—fast.
Over to you:
What’s your "third place" when you travel? Is there one specific type of shop or space you always look for, no matter where you land?
Some of my favorite locations in HK for:
Coffee
Noda
The Cupping Room
NOC Coffee
OMA Specialty Coffee
Analog Coffee
Hara Kako
Stationery
CN Square
Siugreat
Journalize
eslite Spectrum
Bars
Iron Fairies
Dead Poets
Bar Leone
Terrible Baby
Knitting Stores (Sinas recs)
Miss Something Knit
Knitterknutter
