Full On In Hong Kong
How can we describe Hong Kong to those who have never been, or to those who are intrigued as to how it’s changed since passing from Britain to China almost thirty years ago? It’s difficult to know where to start. A city where the presence of the ultra modern is totally unmissable yet where traditional ways of life still exist, just out of sight. A city with the best and most comprehensive – and varied – public transport system we’ve ever encountered. A city with such an extensive network of footbridges, walkways, promenades and subways that it’s possible to walk a considerable distance without crossing a single street. And, a city rammed full of people robotically scurrying from place to place, seemingly oblivious to each other’s presence as they walk with eyes fixed to whatever they’re doing with their mobile phones. It’s a science fiction movie from the 1960s where people only talk via machines.
Look up and you see a scarcely believable number of tower blocks, in some districts leaving barely a square inch of ground free from concrete and steel reaching skywards, look out from any window and chances are you’ll see the sea, ferries, freight ships, maybe a cruise liner. Yet there’s urban forests where the birds sing, there’s heavy dark clouds clinging to the peaks of mountains, there’s peasant fishermen earning a meagre living within yards of millionaire yachts and expensive high rise apartments. And there’s shopping malls, gigantic plush shopping malls at every turn, each one with a colossal urban footprint. There’s even beaches somewhere, we’re told.
We knew that four days (five nights) in Hong Kong might not be enough to fit everything in, so there was a need even before we arrived to get our act together and make the days as full on as possible. Those four days unfolded something like this…
Arrive Sunday 12th, late evening, straight to our hotel in Kowloon. Unpack, straight to bed. It’s 11pm but having flown from Auckland it’s 3am in our body clocks and we’ve been up for 21 hours. Set an alarm. Sleep.
Monday 13th. Wide awake by 6am as body clocks not yet fully adjusted, which is handy given how much there is to do today. We haven’t included breakfast in our hotel booking so we start with coffee and modest sandwich round the corner at a badly understocked cafe. Stroll along the Kowloon promenade taking in the incredible concentration of giant buildings, then grab the famous Star Ferry across to Hong Kong Island. Something looked odd about the ferry when we first saw it from the hotel window, and now we know what it is: it doesn’t have a stern, just two bows, meaning it doesn’t have to waste time turning around on the short crossing.
Wander through Statue Square playing spot the big towers, on through Central, taking the escalator which claims to be the world’s longest at over 800m, though actually it’s a succession of travellators and not one continuous unit so we decide to dispute its claim. Find our way to the incredibly steep and lengthy ride on the funicular up to The Peak where the viewing platforms are well placed to grant panoramas across land and sea.
Return on the funicular, hungry after the meagre breakfast, grab lunch in Central Market, noticing that one bar looks like it would be good for a beer if we get the chance one evening. Take the time honoured Star Ferry back, at the terrific price of 77p for the two of us.
4:30pm, board the last of the original Chinese junk boats, The Dukling (no “c”), for a serene half hour cruise around the water, freed for a while from the monster tower blocks, gliding through the waves and listening to an informative commentary on the history of these little red-sailed craft. It’s thoroughly lovely.
Evening, 8pm, watch with hundreds (thousands?) of others the laser/LED/ drone light show which is an absolute spectacle, the 2026 equivalent of a firework display but with ultra modern technology. It’s OK and it’s very clever but we only need to see it once. Afterwards take the metro to Temple Street, wander through the markets and sample the renowned street food including the local delicacy of fish balls on sticks. (I like them, Michaela isn’t keen on the sloppy texture). Grab a cheap but excellent Chinese meal in a locals’ place in Woo Sung Street. Return by metro. Bed at 23:30, only been up the 17 hours today, 4 less than yesterday. Set an alarm. Sleep.
Tuesday 14th. Breakfast at the hotel, much more satisfactory. Take the metro to Tung Chung on Lantau Island and wander into the cable car station from where we take the amazing Npong Ping 360 cable car over the sea and up the mountain. Long long queues to board, by the way – takes almost an hour of queuing before we get our ride. At 25 minutes journey time, 5.7 kilometres in length and an elevation gain of over 600m it’s regularly rated one of the top ten cable car rides in the world. Up at the top we climb the steps to the “Big Buddha” statue, appropriately named as it’s 112ft tall and sits 1580ft above sea level. Could be called “Huge Buddha” and you wouldn’t argue. We explore the surrounding temple of Po Lin and marvel at its ornate beauty.
From here we take the number 21 bus down the other side of Lantau, to the ancient fishing village of Tai O which is a remarkable sight with its myriad of houses built on stilts over the water, tight alleys leading to unusual footbridges without which the community is cut in to separate pieces. Climb into a small boat to move calmly through this remarkable ancient village where little has changed in generations (apart from the advent of gawping tourists like us) and out past the harbour wall to the sea beyond. Still determined to eat in properly local places we grab a couple of bowls of authentic Tai O food. Disappointingly poor quality and squid which is the consistency of a truck tyre. Completely inedible.
Retrace our journey via Bus 21 and the amazing cable car (we took the glass floor option both times just to get the full experience) then metro back to Kowloon.
Evening, head back to Temple Street, aiming for street food and fortune tellers. On plastic chairs on a street corner with dozens of others the food is both excellent and cheap. On plastic chairs in a makeshift kiosk the fortune telling is absolute garbage and a waste of money.
Back to Kowloon via metro. Set an alarm. Sleep soundly.
Wednesday 15th. Decide to take breakfast out rather than pay hotel prices. Fail to find anything half decent (lots aren’t open yet) so head out unfed on the metro to Lei Tung. Find excellent breakfast cafe and order more than we intended because we’re hungry. Nice but full. Here at Ap Lei Chau the attraction is the Aberdeen fishing village. The water here is rammed like an oversubscribed parking lot with every type of boat you can think of. Decrepit little fishing smacks rub shoulders with millionaire launches, big trawlers chug back in from the night’s sortie, water taxis weave back and forth between the hulls and houseboats provide homes for water dwelling families. A handful of the houseboats are nicely presented airbnb lodgings these days. Here as well there are the remains of what was, pre-COVID, one of Hong Kong’s destination restaurants, the floating eatery of Jumbo Kingdom. Having not reopened after the pandemic, the decrepit structure is ample evidence of how quickly the sea and salty air will reclaim disused property.
Fishermen trade at every level here. The trawlers drop large catches into the thriving fish market – strictly wholesale – but independent men in tiny boats bring in their modest catch to sell to eager punters on the quay. We watch the transactions taking place, the fresh fish being descaled and de-finned while still alive, then beheaded and filleted with speed and precision. Money is passed down to the boat in the same net that the fish goes up in.
It’s here as well that the time honoured sampan boats still amble around the waters, some offering half hour trips to visitors. Of course we take one, the lady skipper gently steering us around the crowded waters and carefully explaining all that we see, pointing to a fisherman and saying ‘very poor”, then to the waterfront high rise and saying “very expensive”.
Statues at Aberdeen harbour
Back on the metro to Kowloon, a quick shower and change then on the metro again to Admiralty. From here a major treat for any transport buff as we board one of the quaint old double decker trams which run on rails through the busy streets. These trams, known affectionately as “ding dings” by the locals, have been in operation for over 120 years and are an absolute delight to use, definitely not a smooth ride but huge fun.
We’ve taken the wonderful tram to Happy Valley racecourse. Wednesday night is THE night here, crowds upwards of 50,000 gravitating here every week for racing, music and party. There’s live music, often with a surprisingly big name, in between each race on a stage in the beer garden. Tonight, after Race 4, we are treated to none other than Jason Donovan. Not being big gamblers but always up for some fun, we allocate, and put a ceiling on, our bets for the night at 500 dollars, that’s just under £50, a modest amount In anyone’s book. With an uncharacteristic flash of fortune on the gambling front we snare two winners and one place and end the evening only 49 dollars down. Massively enjoyable entertainment for under a fiver can’t be bad. Great evening, terrific atmosphere, enormous fun.
Food at the races is a first for both of us in one sense, a hot dog which tastes predominantly of basil. Novel.
Back to the hotel via another delightful double decker tram and yet another metro. In bed half an hour after midnight. It’s still full on. Set an alarm. Sleep.
Thursday 16th. Breakfast at the hotel, given up on the cafes now and paid the money instead. Only one major destination today, the 10,000 buddhas monastery. Long metro journey, followed by a bit of nonsense as we can’t find our way out of the shopping mall and into the street. Close to my worst nightmare, trapped in a shopping mall. I hope it doesn’t give me dreams tonight, I may never recover. There aren’t really 10,000 buddhas at the monastery – no, remarkably, there’s a lot more than that, over 12,000 in the main temple building alone. Most impactful though is the long climb up the long staircase (roughly forty billion steps in extreme humidity) which is lined all the way up with life size golden buddha statues, not in the usual handful of buddha poses but instead seemingly performing all sorts of unusual deeds from hunting prey to reading books to riding animals. There’s also a few in decidedly dodgy poses which brings out the worst of my irreverent humour which is best left where it was and not included in this narrative. Philip The Philistine.
Back to Kowloon and for the first time since landing here on Sunday night we grant ourselves a siesta hour, from which I have to rouse Michaela otherwise she’ll sleep till tomorrow, and there’s one last thing to do. Remember we said we’d spotted a decent bar in Central Market? Remember that our winnings at Happy Valley meant that we’re left with more cash than we had intended? Can you think of a way of solving both problems in one go? I can.
And so we end our exhausting, exhilarating four days in this city of clashes by spending money on beer and wine at a table by the sidewalk where we can watch the world go by – all oblivious to each other and all glued to their mobile phones.
One last meal – another HK speciality, the cha sui pork dish – and back on the metro to our welcoming hotel bed. Set an alarm. Sleep.
Friday 17th. Breakfast at the hotel, a couple of paracetamol to ward off the lingering effects of the alcohol, taxi to the airport which uses up the very last of our Hong Kong dollars.
We’re done. It’s been amazing.
43 Comments
Lynette d'Arty-Cross
Wow! You covered a lot of ground in your four days! Very fully packed. You will have needed a rest after that, I’m thinking. I spent two weeks in HK 20 years ago and found much of the food to be rather disappointing – sounds like either that hasn’t changed much or none of us made good choices in that department! Fantastic pictures.
Phil & Michaela
Yep you kind of get full on or sink in a place like HK. The food wasn’t all bad by any means but was definitely hit and miss.
Eha Carr
Thank you! Very selfishly, thank you! I first spent a fortnight in Hong Kong in September 1960 and my husband and I fell in love with the place and the people and the food . . . for the next 30 years if we wanted to disappear from Sydney we were on the evening plane for a week or ten days or however long we could manage to stay away from work, telling no one . . . we were in our dreamland . . . First staying at the Peninsula in Kowloon, then making the Mandarin on the Island home – my daughters loved the place from age 5 or 6 when both came along for the first time, found their favourite babysitter anywhere in the world (would you believe the toilet amah from the downstairs Grill Room 🙂 !) . . . when it was Chris Patten’s time to go, our marriage too had come to an end . . . and I have not been back since. Loved your descriptions, cannot believe all the changes . . . even my beloved Aberdeen, where so many long fishy lunches were spent, looks different. Thank God the Star ferry looks the same – some nights we just rode back and forth half-a-dozen times after long and boozy and marvellous dinners . . . Happy Valley was quieter but fun . . . so > so, so glad you had a full and happy time . . . and thank you for making me remember . . .
Phil & Michaela
We stayed probably no more than 100 metres from the Peninsula. Not a surprise that it looks different to you, Eha, so many of the giant skyscrapers look like new developments, but in a way that made things like the independent fishing boats, the sampan and the ding dings even more fun to see.
Toonsarah
I’m exhausted just reading this! Among the highlights noted for if we visit next year (either on the way to or from NZ) are the huge Buddha and cable car ride, the old fishing village, various boat rides and the 10,000 Buddha temple. I was interested in what you said about mobile phones. We stayed two nights in Hong Kong back in the early 1990s (before the handover to China) and I remember that it was the first place we saw people carrying and using mobile phones – brick-sized ones of course! W e would never have believed how ubiquitous they would become and how much part of our own daily lives!
Phil & Michaela
Ha, it was a full on few days, that’s for sure! If I was to give you one piece of advice, it’s…use public transport. Most HK inhabitants don’t own a car apparently, because the integrated transport system is so good, and so cheap. Takes a bit of planning up front but definitely better than guide-with-car or similar
Toonsarah
Oh yes, we almost always use public transport in a big city like that, except perhaps when it’s just one day out of a tour with a guide. In HK we’ll be organising everything ourselves so that sounds definitely the way to get around!
Monkey's Tale
Well I’m exhausted. 😊 That’s a lot to see across a huge city. HK is a regular stop for us when going to Asia, but Ive never been to the 10,000 Buddhas so now it’s on the list. 😊 Maggie
Phil & Michaela
It’s a good job the public transport is so good, it makes it a lot easier than other cities of similar size. (As an aside, Michaela has used your recent posts as her starting point for planning Argentina, our trip is likely to be later this year, possibly November to February… big thank you for your guidance!)
Monkey's Tale
Oh great. I highly recommend Salta and north to Jujuy. It is unlike anywhere else in Argentina.
restlessjo
Full on but fun, Phil. I’d love to do the ferries and cable car. Somewhere more relaxing next? xx
Heyjude
Be prepared for queues!
Phil & Michaela
Well next on the list is two cataract operations so we’re grounded now for a short time until I know it’s gone smoothly!
restlessjo
A couple of weeks then. Fingers crossed xx
Heyjude
My daughter and granddaughter spent a few days in HK on route to Australia in February. They spent a lot of time queuing. So many people. She said that they walk round looking g at their phones. Stop dead. Rude. Pushing in. They spent so long queuing for the cable cars they didn’t have time to get up to the big Buddha. Not a place I would enjoy. It’s exhausting.
Phil & Michaela
All of your comments about the local population are spot on, it’s not a place where you strike up casual conversations. Hold the door for someone and they don’t even make eye contact, let alone say thank you. And as for “stop dead”, “push in”, “barge through” things, it’s as if they can’t see other humans sometimes. All a bit odd tor an old fashioned English gentleman like me (well, I like to think I am, anyway!)
Forestwood
I was sick when I was last in HK but it still is possible to do most of the tourist sites in a few days that you visited. Its busier, and same same but much more techy. Do they still spruike on the streets outside the shops?
Phil & Michaela
I had never seen or heard that word before, had to Google it! I don’t even know how to say it 😂. But the answer is…no they don’t.
Travels Through My Lens
You covered a lot of ground in just a few days! It reminds me of my whirlwind trip to Hong Kong decades ago. We had trouble finding good food as well.
Phil & Michaela
There was some good food but it was a bit hit and miss. A full on city though!
Anonymous
Your travels never cease to amaze us! We met briefly in Hot Springs, Arkansas & some day, would love to catch up again over a cold beer somewhere, maybe even California?!
Phil & Michaela
Hi yes, we remember meeting you guys – chatting sat on a wall with cascading water all around! Hope you are both well, yep, we’ll be in California again before too long…
grandmisadventures
wow, that is an incredible tour around Hong Kong you took us on! I like how you really showed all the different aspects, time periods, culture of the city. I think I would very much like to explore it myself one day.
Phil & Michaela
There certainly are a lot of different sides to Hong Kong
freelypleasantd4f4ac034c
Hi Phil and Michaela,
My name is Melissa Mooncai. I live in the USA. I found your blog when I was doing research for a trip to Cambodia back in 2024. I learned about Mr. Sarim from your blog. He was my driver for 3 days in Siem Reap. On top of all the famous sites, he took my husband and I to wonderful restaurants, shows and shops. We really had a good time there. Thank you for the information. He asked us to say hello to you. I tried but unable to attach a photo of Mr. Sarim and me. I hope you still remember him.
I have been reading your blog ever since then. You don’t know it but I have been traveling with you through the Internet and I love every minute of it. Thank you. The last one was Hong Kong. My home Country. I grow up there. I immigrant to the US with my family in 1977 before China took it back from your home Country. I actually have an old British passport. I have been back to HK many times to visit friends. I feel bad that I didn’t connect with you sooner. I would have suggest to you many good places that the local eats. I would have given you warning not to speak to the fortuneteller. Other than that you did pretty good yourself. The sampan that you took for a half hour trip. In the old days my brothers and I would take it out for the day. The owner would take us to good locations to fish and he would cook a meal for us on the boat with the fishes that we caught for $500 HK dollars. Those trips are great memories we still talked about during family gatherings.
Happy travels and be safe.
Best wish,
Melissa Mooncai
Phil & Michaela
What a lovely message to receive, thank you! Yes of course we remember Sarim, he was such a good guy, really pleased you were able to track him down and use him as your guide. Great memories of your home country you have, too. We enjoyed our few days in HK even if it was full on!
leightontravels
Really enjoyed this. Funnily enough, I am currently writing up my own experiences in Hong Kong from 16 years ago. It’s been really fun and interesting to spot so many familiar sites and take in a few new ones. The onslaught of sights and experiences you describe also matches my own time there: full on. I also noted your comments on negative social etiquette interactions and was a bit surprised, as I remember that side of things being SO much better than in mainland China. But it’s all down to perspective I guess, and I look forward to seeing how you feel about the mainland in that regard. I guess it’s also likely that the city has changed an awful lot in sixteen years.
Phil & Michaela
Hi Leighton, interesting regarding the social aspect. Choosing my words carefully, I did read someone else’s report, someone returning to HK after nearly 30 years away, whose main comment was how few westerners were there now compared to back then. Maybe it’s become more like the rest of China in that respect?
leightontravels
Mm, that was my very suspicion. Ch… ch… ch.., changes, and all that.
Marie
A great read… we were there in 1988… a while ago now…
Phil & Michaela
It’s a fair bet it’s a very different place now…
Helen Devries
I hope this gets through….WP playing up again.
You certainly packed plenty in over four days! And even won on the gee gees!
Phil & Michaela
Definitely full on!
Lookoom
An astonishing variety of activities. It must have taken a lot of serious research to organise all this. Thank you, that’s very interesting.
Phil & Michaela
There may have been a logistical exercise or two…
WanderingCanadians
We’ve never been to Hong Kong before. Looks like there’s quite a variety in everything – architecture, food and excursions. Not sure I’d enjoy all the robotic people though!
Phil & Michaela
Sure has variety!
Jyothi
How wonderful!!
The Flask Half Full
We just got back from a whirlwind trip to Japan, Seoul, and Shanghai. We were struck by the sheer and overwhelming DENSITY in all of the big cities – the high rises seemed to grow up from the ground like weeds! Looks like Hong Kong has a similar urban planning strategy. I guess if you can’t build out, you build UP!
Great photos, as usual. I have some very similar water lilies from our trip to Japan. Beautiful.
Cheers!
Phil & Michaela
Different world huh?
The Flask Half Full
Crazy different. But impressive.
Alison
I did see many of your photos on Instagram and enjoyed following you around Hong Kong. I can’t believe you did so much. Looked like you enjoyed every bit, except the shopping malls of course. Hope your eye procedures go well
Phil & Michaela
It’s a place which kind of forces you to be full on, isn’t it. Eyes recovering well, ta 😁