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 Traveller's Tales: Places to go and see in Hong Kong
Take a tour of the top places to go in Hong Kong. You may read about must see places and activities in the area. Also, you might want to read our
Hong Kong city guide.
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| A Zimmermann |
21 March 2004 |
Stayed at Eaton Hotel - Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
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Very good location, close to Temple Market and Kowloon Park. You can reach everything by foot. The only transport I used was Star Ferry and a bus to Aberdeen Harbour to go on a harbour cruise in one of the traditional Sampan boats. Great!!
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| T Mccarthy |
13 March 2004 |
Stayed at Metropark Hotel - Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
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If it was a major tourist site in Hong Kong, we visited it. Don't miss a sampan ride and ask to be dropped off for dim sum on the Jumbo floating restaurant. Give the bird market a miss.
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| D Williams |
13 March 2004 |
Stayed at Grand Hyatt Hong Kong - Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
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Hong Kong tremendous - vibrant and very much in your face. Use taxis as they are very cheap. MRT is however excellent and superbly efficient and clean. Buy the Octopus card (which takes you on all buses, ferries and MTR) for a real economy.
Kowloon visit is a must - real China the further you venture. Don't forget a trip on the trams - go upstairs for a real tourists view. We dined at the American Restaurant on Hennessy Road one evening. Ignore the name - totally Chinese with Beijing style food - excellent.
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| N Lyall |
09 March 2004 |
Stayed at Regal Airport Hotel - Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
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We took the bus S1 from outside the hotel to the local metro station/bus depot which was very cheap 2HKD. From there we took another bus to Discovery Bay costing 6HKD. This is not the most exciting place in Hong Kong and is bascially an expat village, however there are some nice views across the bay. We also visited Silvermine Bay, also by bus from Discovery Bay which is a quiet but pretty costal town. The journey there was great as the bus drove through the National Park that is located on Lantau and provided some stunning scenery. We then took the ferry from Silvermine Bay to Central on Hong Kong Island which was quick and relatively cheap 25HKD.
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| J Dahlheimer |
07 March 2004 |
Stayed at Evergreen Hotel Hong Kong - Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
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What more can be said about Hong Kong? The architecture has to be seen to be believed. And the city is certainly one of the most traveller friendly with a fantastic transportation infrastructure. But it is no longer a relatively cheap destination and the standard tourist shopping hot spots of Stanley Market and Nathan Road are getting overpriced.
Overlooked are the museums. Especially the Science Museum which offers a plethora of student friendly hands on exhibits in every discipline. The kinetic energy display is fascinating.
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| L Mcalister |
03 March 2004 |
Stayed at Bishop Lei International - Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
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Visited Hong Kong for 4 Days/Nights. Went to Aberdeen, Stanley and the Peak. Highly recommend Klong Bar and Grill, Stormies (Fong) for eating out. Walked and used a taxi to get around.
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| S Fukuda |
11 February 2004 |
Stayed at Rosedale on the Park Hotel Hong Kong - Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
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Lamma island (Yung Shue Wan) is good for short trip. You can have reasonable seafood meal and tasty cakes and coffee near ferry terminal. Temple of ten thousand buddha (Sha Tin) is also a nice place to visit. You can laugh!
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| M Meacham |
09 February 2004 |
Stayed at Harbour Plaza Hotel Hong Kong - Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
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My trip to Hong Kong was a spur of the moment thing, but the nice thing about visiting Hong Kong is I could do things without much planning. The concierge desk had brochures describing 4-hr and 8-hr tours that cost between $280 HKD and $450HKD per person (the more expensive tour includes a meal). Being that this was the first time I had spent any time in Hong Kong, I tried the Hong Kong Island tour for $280 HKD. This provided a good way for me to see where things were and ask the tour guide about getting around in the city.
The next day, I decided to familiarize myself with the MTR (Hong Kong's subway) and the very busy Nathan Road area, and I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. Their subway looks more like an underground shopping mall than a train stop. It is well lighted at all times and lined with shops. Littering carries a steep fine, so you won't find a speck of trash or a discarded cigarette butt anywhere.
The MTR system itself is pretty easy to figure out with map in-hand. Ideally, your map of Hong Kong would be small but detailed enough to show you where the MTR stops fall throughout the city. Your hotel concierge can probably provide you with just such a map.
Just walk up to a vending machine, touch your destination stop, and the computer screen will tell you how much money you need to deposit to get to where you're going (yes, it's that easy). The machine will spit out a credit card size piece of paper that grant access to the train area. And from there you will wait about 3 minutes before a train arrives.
At some point, you must use a taxi, and my first experience with this wasn't so good. The driver didn't speak English and this is not uncommon. As a consequence of this, we ended up travelling everywhere in Hong Kong except my intended destination which was the Harbour Plaza Hotel. I ended up in several conversations with his dispatcher before I finally got deposited at the right spot (to be fair, I wasn't charged for the "tour").
To avoid running into this little nightmare I would again suggest you acquire a map of the Island that clearly shows the city on both sides of Victoria Harbour, popular destinations in both English and Chinese, and the location of most of the major hotels. This will make life simple for both you and your driver.
Another caveat about using the taxis: Don't use them to get across Victoria Bay. I say this for two reasons: (1) you can get stuck in the cross-harbour tunnel traffic and incur a charge for just sitting in a parked taxi; and (2) there's a $20 HKD toll that will be added to your fair. For about half the cost of the toll, you can take the MTR to either side in about half the time. The Star Ferry service will also get you from one side to the other for even less money, but it will take about 15 or 20 minutes depending on your final destination. The additional time spent on the ferry, however, is more than balanced out by the fact that you get to stretch your legs and walk around the deck while viewing Victoria Harbour. Once you get to either side of the harbour, then take a taxi if you still need one.
Besides educating myself on how to get around, I had some clothes custom made. This was fun, but if you're even toying with the idea of doing this I would recommend doing it on your first day. They can finish your stuff in 1 or 2 days. If you can wear it a few days before you leave, then you'll get to see how it really fits and have any additional alterations made for no charge. Also negotiate shipping costs into the final sale if you can. Its much easier for them to ship it to you than it will be to carry an extra suitcase back through customs.
On a different note, I learned something about gratuities that usually goes unsaid. There is this 10% service charge attached to many purchases that seems to negate the need for it. Well, think again. My server at the Lux Cafe informed me that the "service" charge didn't go to him. That money was just an additional cost of the meal that would never work its way into his pocket (surprise!). Some places do pass it along, but its a good idea to ask the person serving you exactly how it works. Otherwise, they'll never get a tip for their great efforts.
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| J Turner |
01 February 2004 |
Stayed at Bishop Lei International - Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
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We bought food at both the Park N Shop and the Wellcome supermarkets by the escalators. Each was well stocked. The hotel is easy to get to - taxi or bus advised - or a short walk from the escalator. We found a great Egyptian restaurant called "Koshary" along the escalator and there are numerous bars and other restaurants along the way. The Indian "Tandoor" restaurant was also very tasty. Small Chinese places offer inexpensive standard rice, noodle or soup dishes and dim sum (yum cha) restaurants are excellent - ask where to find one).
The zoo and Hong Kong Park were very nice, though the aviaries are closed due to bird flu. The area around the escalator at many levels has lots of shopping, antiques and carpets (Hollywood Rd), and restaurants and bars. Times Square near Happy Valley (easy metro access) has lots of shopping and a large Fortress electronics store. We walked a lot, took a few taxis - mostly uphill or to the train station, got the bus to Stanley market from the Central bus station, and enjoyed rides on the tramline. The tram is narrow and crowded but worth the ride for the view from the top (as long as you don't have a lot of bags). The Victoria Peak tram is a nice ride and you can walk on many trails at the top.
Hong Kong has great ambience, good shopping (especially for namebrand goods if coming from China) and despite lacking real budget hotels, is a worthwhile destination. The Kowloon-Canton Railway (KCR) is convenient and reasonably priced (located on the Kowloonside) and the ferry from Guangzhou is also pretty easy (cheaper but you land a bit further away from the downtowns of both cities). Hong Kong taxis are pretty reasonable, but you should have the hotel name written in Chinese characters if possible. Taxis charge a surcharge of five HK dollars for each bag.
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| J O' grady |
27 January 2004 |
Stayed at Bishop Lei International - Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
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We visited many restaurants including Jade Gardens, Spring Deer, Felix, Woodlands, Peking Gardens. All were good and the Sunday Dim Sum at Lin Heung Teahouse was wonderful. We used the MTR, buses and many Ferry boats for our self guided tours which included Kowloon New Years Parade, Po Lin Monastery, Cheung Chau, Kowloon, Sha Tin racing, Tai Wei, Mongkok, Hong Kong Museum of History(outstanding).
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