I’ve seriously been sleeping on Hong Kong content. After spending a week there, in February, the experience really surprised me, and it’s taken me a while to work out how best to talk about the city-my usual ‘spending 48 hours in…’ sort of content didn’t seem like it would do Hong Kong justice. I will do a separate post, though, with a suggested itinerary for those of you with only a couple of days in the city. There will also be other Hong Kong content, I’m just working out how to share as much as possible without repeating myself.
Hong Kong deserves more time than 48 hours, if you can. At least a week, to see the city properly, ideally two. I’d do two if I was going again for the first time. Hong Kong’s variety of things to do and see, food to eat, shopping and the general ambiance of the city really need a proper amount of time to be appreciated properly and trust me, you won’t regret using a couple of weeks of your life to explore here.
Our trip to Hong Kong was an accidental one. My partner won a ‘free’ (just pay taxes) flight in a competition Cathay Pacific were running, to celebrate Hong Kong reopening to tourists after Covid. It came at the completely wrong time for us, as I was going through redundancy at work, but we realised we’d never have another change to get to Hong Kong so cheaply. We booked a ticket for me, cheap and cheerful accommodation at the infamous Chungking Mansions, and decided to throw caution to the wind and go anyway. In the end I started a new job in November and we flew three months later in February, so it all worked out in the end.
As we woke up at our airport hotel the morning of our flight, we’d had an email saying our hotel in Hong Kong was cancelled. I would have totally freaked out but J got on the phone and solved the problem, getting us another room in the same building. Problem solved-until we got to the room that evening, realised the hotel it belonged to didn’t really exist and we STILL had nowhere to stay. A more panicked phone call was made this time and we got rebooked into a Holiday Inn down the street, who were brilliant. Lesson for Hong Kong-book a ‘proper’ hotel rather than a smaller room somewhere, as some accommodation is not all that reliable, obviously. Stressful for us, but not a reason to miss out on visiting Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is busy, with lots of reasons to queue-we’d researched and were well aware of this, but it’s worth factoring in to planning. Disneyland for example isn’t a must see but would be a cool day. We chose to go to Hong Kong’s own theme park Ocean Park instead-spending most of our day there seeing the animals (including Pandas, the real reason we went) rather than going on rides. If you’re interested in the Pandas, they do do a Panda experience, but this books up well in advance-we couldn’t make the dates work, if I was to go back I’d book this as soon as I booked my flights!
The very best thing to do in Hong Kong is just take it all in. Walk along the Avenue of Stars and look over Victoria Harbour. Take the Star Ferry, just so you can say you have. Go up the Mid Level Escalators, the largest escalator in the world, and explore the area. Find street food in Kowloon if you’re feeling brave (but maybe not the stinky tofu that I couldn’t stand the smell of!) Take a boat tour around Aberdeen. Get on the open top bus to give your feet a rest. Go and buy things you don’t really need, and test your haggling skills, at Temple Street Night Market. Visit Yuen Po Street Bird Garden and see the locals bring their caged birds for some fresh air. Go down Goldfish Street and see all of the fish, and other pets, for sale. The whole city is full of new sights, smells, tastes and is an absolute joy to discover.
Photographers will want to see the slightly old, battered mall, the Dragon Centre, which has an indoor rollercoaster, now closed, on the 9th floor. K11 Musea has a giant peacock on it’s roof which is really cool, and the building itself is filled with lots of art too. Lok Wah South Estate and Shek Lei Estate are known for their photo spots but we didn’t manage to get to either of them, a big regret for the photographer side of me. If you’ve been looking at Hong Kong hashtags on Instagram, you’ll likely be familiar with the blue circles inside metal walls that seem to go on forever, the amazing high rise apartment buildings and the iconic pink bridge.
Talking of missing out, we missed out on a few other things too. I wouldn’t have minded a day at Disneyland, a day trip to Macau, and a boat trip to see the pink dolphins) Of course we only had a week in the city so we had to prioritise things that were easier and quicker to get to, as well as keeping costs down-doing Disneyland and seeing the dolphins would have pushed our spending costs up a lot, and I’d only recently started a new job after redundancy, so we couldn’t really afford it anyway.
Everything I’ve mentioned in the paragraph about taking in the city, we did. Hong Kong’s markets were filled with stalls selling all sorts and I loved having a look, and getting a good deal on a few things I wanted. Avenue of the stars was beautiful, as was the Star Ferry journey. We did a boat on Victoria Harbour one night to see the nightly light show, and watched it from the side of the water another night-don’t miss this. The Mid Level Escalators was an interesting experience, and you can totally see why they’ve been fitted, as the streets are incredibly hilly. The Bird Garden and Goldfish street were a dream to photograph, although I did feel a bit sad about the puppies and kittens on sale. A different way of life to what I’m used to for sure. We also visited a couple of temples, and as we were there during Lunar New Year they were very busy, and we got to see how people were celebrating the festival. Amazing.
Victoria Peak was worth the time to get the Peak Tram, a bit like a funicular, to the top. The views were amazing, but the Monopoly Experience at the top was nothing to write home about, so you could absolutely skip that. The Big Buddha took us a day, the queue to get the cable car up was very long, but the whole experience was so beautiful, I wouldn’t miss that. I’ve written a post sharing more about our Big Buddha visit, definitely read that. The Aberdeen boat tour was really lovely, it was nice to see a different side to Hong Kong. My only tip on that would be to do it mid trip, as we did it on our first day and actually it would have been better as a break from the busy feel of the city. The Star Ferry is worth doing in the middle of the day when locals are at work, as it’s used by commuters to get across the harbour. We had to use it to get back to our hotel one evening after Lunar New Year fireworks and it was AWFUL, crammed full of people and chaotic. As a comparison, when we got it one morning, there were only three other people on there with us. Choose your time wisely.
We were lucky enough to accidentally be in Hong Kong for Lunar New Year, having not realised when we booked our flights. Whilst this undoubtably made the city busier, it also meant we got to experience the joy and celebration we wouldn’t usually have seen, and it was a real treat for us. If you can choose to visit over Lunar New Year, I’d hugely recommend that. It’s worth mentioning that if you want to see the Lunar New Year Parade, you’ll need to get there early to get a spot-we managed to see all it from our window in the end.
Genuinely, Hong Kong for me was a bucket list city, it was something so new whilst being a tiny bit familiar as everyone spoke enough English we could get by, and a great way to dip a toe into Asia. I’d recommend a trip to Hong Kong to anyone. If you’ve been, please let me know your favourite part of the city-I think it’s impossible to choose mine!
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