Having a Good Day at Have a Booday

I believe Hong Kong’s coldness comes from its commercialism, addiction to materialism and lack of art and culture, while Taiwan breathes the latter. Anyone who’s visited Taipei knows that Taipei is best known for its street food, hidden cafes and bookstores. Its been talked about so often it has almost become cliché. But it is amazingly true. No visit to Taipei would be complete without a visit to an Eslite bookstore and coffee or tea at a back alley café.

Have a Booday is my newly discovered gem tucked away in a back alley a short 5 minute stroll from Zhongshan MRT station. The article about Have a Booday published in Ming Pao late last year aptly explained what these back alley discoveries are all about, “There may be nothing people in Taipei can do about their objective environment [meaning its less than attractive skyline and horrible traffic], but they put in 100% effort into their surroundings. They create one small cozy paradise after another in narrow side streets and back alleys while their dreams shone like a glowing halo on the top of their heads. The recent opening of a new shop by Mogu is a therefore news everyone is fighting to report to their peers because we have just found another hub in Taipei that allows us to rest and think.”

Have a Booday is the baby of the Booday design team, which most people in Hong Kong know through their publication “Mogu” magazine. Have a Booday is split over four floors in an old Taiwanese house - the ground floor is a small shop selling Mogu designed items like T-shirts, bags, postcards and cute boxes of matches with different poems written on each matchbox, the second floor is a café with an open kitchen selling coffee and tea, homemade cakes and Mogu recommended books and music, while the third and fourth floors are the Mogu design studio. This is the kind of place where you can spend the entire afternoon reading a book and sipping coffee, or even bringing your knitting to do and striking a conversation with artists and designers who treat the place like home.

On the Friday we visited Typhoon Sepat was wreaking havoc on the streets of Taipei with its strong winds and torrential rain, while inside Have a Booday soft Bossa Nova music was playing, the aroma of coffee and the sweet smell of innocence and creativity was lingering in the air. This is my kind of place. This is the kind of place where people build dreams. This is the kind of place that can change Hong Kong.