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You
won't find the place on a tourist guide.
If you ask your hotel desk they'll be unable to help you, and will probably try and talk you out of the idea of going in that part of town anyway.
And it is a special taxi-driver the one that accepts to drive you there.
So you're on your own...
For some misterious reasons, it's easier to find Go-by Street among the maze of alleys around the Night Market if it's late at night.
If it's raining it's even better.
The
Pawn-Shop is advertised by an uncertain and probably second-hand
bright blue neon sign that says "Antiques". On the
door
there's a green bell-button, with a greasy card saying "Ring to Get In".
The only shop window is crowded with assorted stuff, including an old blue
electric guitar displayed in its open case, a large airplane model painted
in bright red and an enormous white teddy-bear sitting on a faded
mock-Chippendale easy chair together with a life-sized Howard the Duck plush
doll (with a black patch on its eye).
On the inside, the space is filled with cheap light wooden shelves, now darkened to a rich and dusty brown colour.
Li Ng, the manager, is almost certainly perched behind his counter, under a big stuffed alligator hanging from the ceiling, and he will not appearently give you a second glance.
Old furniture occupies the back of the shop, with consumer electronics and house appliances taking up a corner by themselves, and are usually very popular with newlyweds (at least, there seems always to be a young couple back there holding hands and browsing the shelves).
A table holds an assorted collection of small statuaries: reclining buddhas,
cheap jade figurines, taoist saints carved out of dark wood and yellowed
ivory, some pieces of Victorian jet mourning jewelry and a few less identifiable
things. Inside an elephant leg by the table
side
there are some old walking sticks, a few umbrellas (including a
parrot-head-handled
one, Mary Poppins style), a cane fishing rod, a chivalry sabre and a tai-chi
sword. A dirty glass cabinet
holds the more precious jades, a few insects in amber, an exquisitely carved
cameo of a woman's profile, a large fossil ammonite, assorted jewelry (glass)
spilling out of an ancient
box (built in Shanghai in 1926). Over the cabinet hangs a wall display holding
about twenty different pipes.
Used books - cheap novels, recipe books,
an ancient Encyclopaedia in French, a few volumes of bound Strand magazines
- take up a whole bookcase that
cuts the shop in two, and hides a spiral staircase leading down.
...You will find yourself in the Netherworld.
Apart from this, little else is certain.
From reasons still unknown, the stair leads infact to various different Netherworld locations, depending on the occasion and situation, and the general incomprehensible dinamics of the shiftings in Netherworld texture. A Theory about the whole biz has been elaborated but has as yet to be fully tested.
The Pagoda
Home of wise Master Li when
he
is not
somewhere else (Are you questioning an old man's right to do what he
pleases , you silly kid?! Ah!), this small four storey building appears
to stand
in a small clearing in the middle of a thick and eerie Netherworld forest.
A small brook
runs by and feeds a pond inhabited by a carp. The
Tu Bi Monster is usually on guard in the garden.
The top floor holds various odds and ends among which an ancient Japanese suit of armour stands out, and is where people climbing down the stair end up.
Through a trapdoor the room below can be reached. This is furnished like a small but cozy traditional study, decorated with tasteful prints and dominated by a large window. Here is where Master Li dozes, wastes his time with old puzzles or watches IKTV, and where he entertains his guests when he feels like (notice the large chessboard in a corner, the ping-pong table folded behind the large silk mandala).
A wide stair leads further down, where Master Li's serious books and paraphernalia are stored, together with a small lab, and a small cot is laid for the wise master's power naps. A spare room and the master's proper bedroom (off-limits) are also on this floor.
The ground floor houses a small but perfectly equipped kitchen and pantry, a hall where various maps (not all depicting easily identifiable places) hang on the walls together with quite a lot of old weapons on display, and a bicycle shack.
The Boxes Warehouse
... is somewhere in the London Docksides, circa 1890.
Boxes are everywhere, marked in a variety of languages and containing a variety of stuff.
A smaller area has been cleared out at the very centre of the maze, where a crate marked as containing Tea serves as a table and smaller boxes of Dry tangerines are normally used for seats.
The exact way through the maze and out in the London streets changes from time to time and only the Dragons know the recipe (= the list of wares) to be followed in order to get out.
