Travel Hong Kong
Sights and Landmarks

One should pity the poor locals who never lift their eyes from the streets – Hong Kong can be one of the most riveting and unexpectedly beautiful urban spectacles on earth. A two-minute walk from the bustle of Central reveals a harbour view that the architectural boom of the 1980s and 1990s has turned into a mixture of Manhattan and San Francisco, with added shipping bustle.

At night, it just gets better. The view of Hong Kong’s glittering lights from the Peak by night is unforgettable, particularly at 2000 when a nightly laser and music show invigorates the towers of Central and Kowloon’s Tsim Sha Tsui.

By contrast, the south side of Hong Kong island, at Stanley or Repulse Bay, is an entrancing islandscape straight out of a classical Chinese ink painting. And any backstreet market provides folksy, ethnic charm by the barrow load. Lamma Island provides a picturesque (power plant excepted) getaway and some excellent seafood restaraunts and vegetarian cafes.

Old colonial Hong Kong may have been short on grand monuments but the now famous Bank of China and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) give the place a 21st-century buzz suited to one of the Pacific Rim’s most important economic hubs. These buildings are sharing the limelight with the rainbow-coloured light show of The Center skyscraper, the waterside steel wings of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre and the soaring International Finance Center.

Die-hard colonialists can content themselves with Government House, the Former French Mission Building, the Former Gate Lodge on the peak, the Former Kowloon-Canton Railway Clock Tower, the Former Kowloon British School and a host of other ‘Olds’ and ‘Formers’.

There are far older relics of the region’s past still surviving the relentless forward drive, especially out in the New Territories. These include the Causeway Bay Tin Hau Temple, Law Uk Hakka House, Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb, Sam Tung Uk Village, Liu Man Shek Tong Ancestral Hall, Kun Lung Wai Gate Tower, Yeung Hau Temple and so on.

Travel Hong Kong is pinning much of its hopes as a future tourist centre on the Hong Kong Disneyland, which opens in 2005 on Lantau Island as well as a 75m (246-foot) ferris wheel at Victoria Harbour, due to open in 2006.

It is also developing closer cooperation and transport links with neighbouring Macau, which is developing as a major casino tourism destination and potential low-cost airline hub in Asia.

Museum Passes

The HKTB Museum Pass gives unlimited admission to the Hong Kong Museum of Art, the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, the Hong Kong Science Museum, the Hong Kong Space Museum, the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence, the Hong Kong Museum of History and others, as well as some discounts in the museum shops.

Valid for one week, the pass costs HK$30 and is available from HKTB offices and participating museums.

Travel Hong Kong Key Attractions

Statue Square

Previously never a feature of traditional Hong Kong tourist itineraries, Statue Square is now a must-see, on account of its dazzling ensemble of modern architecture. The headquarters building of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) forms the south side of the square and just to the east of it is I M Pei’s Bank of China Tower.

Less distinguished but equally prominent buildings jostle around them, towering over the colonial remnant of St John’s Cathedral. In more antiquated contrast, the Legislative Council Building, formerly the Supreme Court, on the east side of the square, houses Hong Kong’s partly elected assembly.

Hong Kong and Shanghai
Banking Corporation building

The bizarre profile of Norman Foster’s masterpiece may not look monumental on paper (it is on most Hong Kong Dollar banknotes) but in the flesh (or steel) it is tremendous.

Opened in 1986, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation building exemplified the fashion for atriums in world architecture and an escalator ride up into the belly of the building.

The building has no central core (bridge engineering techniques secure the walls and its infrastructure is on the outside) so all 11 storeys of the central atrium are open and unobstructed.

Bank of China Tower

Deliberately planned to dwarf the neighbouring Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Building, the Bank of China Tower is now Hong Kong’s ‘national’ monument.

The Chinese-American architect, I M Pei, developed Beijing’s triumphalist intentions into a soaring, gracefully irregular pinnacle, the design characteristics of which inspire lively debate among connoisseurs of feng shui. The triangular and hexagonal structural logic requires some minutes of puzzled scrutiny.

Visitors can ascend to the 43rd of the building’s 74 floors for a particularly stunning view of Central.

International Finance Centre

Standing beside the Star Ferry terminal is the soaring 88-storey International Finance Centre (known as ‘Two IFC’ - One IFC building is older and much smaller) building is for now Hong Kong’s tallest skyscraper at 420m (1,378 feet) and the sixth tallest in the world – the Union Square Phase 7 will be taller once completed in 2007.

Topped by a sculptural ‘crown’ reaching inward and outward, the buildings tapered upward appearance is achieved by smaller floor areas towards the top. The building featured in the movie Tomb Raider II.

The 55th-floor Hong Kong Monetary Authority Information Centre is open to the public and there is also a cinema, upscale shopping mall and the super-trendy new ISOLA bar and grill on the third floor.

Victoria Peak

A miniature hill station in colonial times, Victoria Peak is stratospheric in its social exclusiveness and its rents. Groundlings can still visit, however, ascending by the vertiginous Peak Tram – a funicular in use since 1888, which feels more like the Space Shuttle.

Atop the hill is the Peak Tower (a slightly bizarre viewing platform with displays and other facilities) as well as the Peak Galleria shopping arcade. The amusements and shops on offer vary from the appealing to the unforgivably tacky, although there are at least plenty of restaurants and bars to sustain visitors.

Dinner at Café Deco, in the Peak Galleria, is a must-do Hong Kong experience – the view down into central Hong Kong and across the water to Kowloon defies description, day or night.

Hikers can scale the real peak, some 140m (459ft) above the tram terminus, with vistas over Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the outlying islands.

Western Market

This former market (a four-storey red brick Edwardian building dating from 1906 and occupying an entire block at the western end of Central) was reopened in 1991, as a shopping centre featuring small shops, souvenir stands and curio sellers.

Ground-floor shops sell unique merchandise rather than chain store goods, while the first floor recreates the old ‘Cloth Alley’, selling silks and fabrics of all kinds. There is also a dim sum restaurant and a fine antique-shop café.

Connaught Road
Tel: 2543 6878. Fax: 2543 6931.
Transport: MTR Sheung Wan, exit B or C; bus or tram along Des Voeux Road to Sheung Wan.
Opening hours: Daily 1000-1900.
Admission: Free.

Travel Hong Kong Shopping Mecca
the Times Square

The retail plaza to end them all, Times Square is an enormous temple to Hong Kong’s number one deity, Mammon. The vast complex houses nine floors of shops and has a spectacular exterior with a huge display screen and electronic clock – the venue for the big millennium countdown in 2000.

At the weekend, the hosts of sacrifices ascending the escalator, to be swallowed up in the belly of this huge idol, demonstrate exactly what the Asian economic miracle was all about. Recession has not visibly blunted the shopping frenzy and there are ever more shops and restaurants under this huge pile.

Times Square, Causeway Bay
Tel: 2118 8900. Fax: 2506 2022.
Website: www.timessquare.com.hk
Transport: MTR Causeway Bay; bus or tram along Hennessey Road to Causeway Bay.
Opening hours: Daily 1000-2200.
Admission: Free.

Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware

Situated in the beautiful Hong Kong Park and overlooking the ultramodern mania of Central, Flagstaff House, dating from 1846, is the former residence of the colonial Commander-in-Chief and the oldest surviving colonial building in Hong Kong.

Flagstaff House now houses a fine museum of tea ware, seals and other ceramics.

10 Cotton Tree Drive, Hong Kong Park, Central (inside Hong Kong Park)
Tel: 2869 0690. Fax: 2810 0021.
Website: www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/Museum/Arts/english/tea/intro/eintro.html
Transport: MTR Admiralty, exit F, then up escalator through Pacific Place; bus or tram along Queensway to Pacific Place.
Opening hours: Thurs-Tues 1000-1700.
Admission: Free.

Travel Hong Kong through the years
in the Museum of History

It is somehow fitting that this go-ahead territory has its history commemorated in a dazzling new building. Opened in late 2000, the new museum building, situated next to the Hong Kong Science Museum in Kowloon, houses exhibits covering the region’s history from prehistoric times, including some spectacular period sets.

There are traditional costumes, a huge collection of period photographs, replicas of old village houses and an entire street, circa 1881, with its own Chinese medicine store. There are also numerous temporary exhibitions.

100 Chatham Road South, Tsim Sha Tsui
Tel: 2724 9042. Fax: 2724 9090.
E-mail: hkmh@lcsd.gov.hk
Website: http://hk.history.museum
Transport: MTR Tsim Sha Tsiu, then walk via Cameron Road; minibus no 1 from Kowloon Star Ferry in Tsim Sha Tsiu to Science Museum Road.
Opening hours: Mon, Wed-Sat 1000-1800, Sun 1000-1700.
Admission: HK$10 (concessions available).

Travel Hong Kong to visit
Wong Tai Sin Temple

An ornate traditional temple in the heart of Kowloon, Wong Tai Sin Temple combines Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist traditions.

Wong Tai Sin himself was a Zhejiang shepherd/alchemist who supposedly concocted a marvellous cure-all.His statue in the main building was brought from the mainland in 1915.

The building is spectacularly colourful with its red pillars, golden ceiling and decorated latticework, although not particularly distinguished.

Far more fascinating are the fortune-tellers in their arcade of booths and the throngs of worshippers.

This is also Hong Kong’s number one temple for Chinese New Year celebrations.

Tai Sin Road, Kowloon
Tel: 2327 8141. Fax: 2351 5640.
Transport: MTR Wong Tai Sin, exit B3, then follow signs.
Opening hours: Daily 0700-1730.
Admission: Free; donations welcome.

Yuen Po Street Bird Garden

Rearing caged songbirds is a time-honoured Chinese pursuit and the Yuen Po Street Bird Garden is Hong Kong’s shrine to this obsession. There are about 70 stalls, each with its own chorus, with ornate cages and cage furniture providing added interest.

And while conditions in the average Hong Kong poultry market would give an animal welfare activist apoplexy, the birds here are pampered and cosseted, even fed honey nectar to sweeten their songs.

Just north of the Bird Garden, there is also a fine flower market and a goldfish market, closer to the MTR station in Tung Choi Street.

Prince Edward Road West, Kowloon
Tel: 2807 6543.
Transport: MTR Prince Edward, exit B1 or B2, then follow signs.
Opening hours: Daily 0700-2000.
Admission: Free.

Travel Hong Kong
riding the Star Ferry

The green and white, or heavily branded, tub-shaped ferries are a familiar sight around Hong Kong and, as such, a symbol of the city.

Far more important, however, is the fact that their decks give one of the best available views, day or night, of the waterfronts of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon – not to mention the plethora of ocean traffic surging through the shipping lanes.

The boats themselves are cast-iron veterans to delight schoolboys of all ages.

Central, Tsim Sha Tsui, Wan Chai and Hung Hom Star Ferry terminals
Tel: 2367 7065 (booking line 2118 6203). Fax: 2118 6028.
E-mail: sf@starferry.com.hk
Website: www.starferry.com.hk
Transport: Star Ferry docks are termini for bus and minibus routes, a short walk from MTR stations.
Operating hours: Daily 0630-2330.
Admission: HK$1.70 (lower deck); HK$2.10 (upper deck); concessions available.

Travel Hong Kong via
the Mid-Levels Escalator

Not just any escalator, the Mid-Levels Escalator is the world’s longest at 800m (2,622ft) and was built as a commuter aid for this wealthy residential hillside.

The city fathers reportedly balked at the cost of twin stairways, so there is only one escalator, running downhill in the morning and uphill thereafter, until midnight.

The Mid-Levels Escalator gives a fine (and free) view of the streets of fashionable Soho and is a great venue for people-watching by passengers and café patrons alike.

Central Market (corner of Queens Road and Jubilee Street) to Conduit Road
Transport: Bus or minibus to Queen’s Road.
Operating hours: Daily 0700-1030 (downhill), 1030-2400 (uphill).
Admission: Free.

Noonday Gun

Yes, there still is a noonday gun (as immortalised by Noel Coward) and it is still ceremoniously fired daily at noon. Actually a Hotchkiss three-pounder, the gun is mounted in its own miniature, park-like enclosure overlooking the Causeway Bay typhoon shelter, off Gloucester Road and opposite the Excelsior Hotel. It is reached by an underpass near the World Trade Centre.

Gloucester Road, Causeway Bay
Transport: MTR Causeway Bay, exit D3, then a short walk past World Trade Centre to Excelsior Hotel.
Operating hours: Noon (of course).
Admission: Free.

Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade

Offering another great view of the spectacular Victoria Harbour and Hong Kong Island waterfront, this esplanade is where Hong Kong couples go in the evenings, for a romantic backdrop while necking. However, day or night, the view is superb.

The colonial-era Clock Tower at the western end of the promenade, by the Star Ferry piers, makes an attractive historic terminus, while Harbour City with the huge cruise liners is another attractive prospect just to the west.

Opened in April 2004, and stretching along the promenade, the Avenue of Stars features hand prints and commemorative plaques honouring the greatest stars of Hong Kong’s celebrated film industry.

Star Ferry Terminal to Hung Hom
Transport: MTR Tsim Sha Tsui; Star Ferry to Kowloon.
Opening hours: Daily 24 hours.
Admission: Free.

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