Three Days in Hong Kong
As I write this, Hong Kong is going through political changes, tourism and even visiting the country could possibly be affected by the time this even gets posted. China has created an extradition bill that basically allows them to extradite criminals from Hong Kong to mainland China. Because of these laws there have been protests some violent throughout Hong Kong for several months and these protests will most likely not die down anytime soon. These laws are impacting the city economically and financially as businesses are taking a big hit. The protests and unrest in Hong Kong is affecting the tourism industry as well, not to mention this year, 2020 COVID-19 has had devastating impacts on all economies throughout the world. Basically, as a tourist, Hong Kong may never be the same, these new laws could affect all tourists coming in and out of the country. I don’t want to add or discuss to much of the negative aspects Hong Kong is going through at the moment, but it is something to keep in mind.
Hong Kong is known as a Special Administrative Region or SAR and belongs to the People’s Republic of China. Hong Kong is unique as it was a former British colony for 156 years from 1841 to 1997. Another identity of Hong Kong is that its official language is Cantonese although English is widely spoken due to the British Colonization. Hong Kong is well known as being a successful Harbor City and currently is the leading financial center in all of East Asia. Hong Kong is one of the most densly populated cities on Earth with a population of nearly 7.5 million. Although the city itself can be seen as a concrete jungle, it is quite surprising that Hong Kong as a whole is only about 25% city and 75% nature. That is right, Nature! Once you get outside the city, there are lush mountains, miles of coastlines, and hundreds of miles of hiking trails.
Three months after moving to Japan, my friend Kimball and I made plans to visit one of his friends that was also visiting Hong Kong around January. This so happened to be a week after Jill arrived, so the times all aligned, we found great flight tickets and booked a long weekend in Hong Kong! In total there were six of us going and we rented an Airbnb in the Kowloon District of Hong Kong, right by the Chungking Mansion which I hear has an interesting history behind it. Once we landed in Hong Kong, it was pretty easy to find the train that goes directly from the airport to downtown. I recommend picking up an Octopus Card at the airport and loading it with money right away. It’s a prepaid card you can use for almost any public transit throughout the city, I actually kept mine in hopes to visit again for a second time. After making our way to the downtown area, getting lost in a huge mall, and missing a couple directional turns we made it to our Airbnb, dropped off our bags and finally were free to explore! Hong Kong is huge! There is no way it can be seen in three days or even three weeks but sometimes that is all you have. Three days can definitely give you a somewhat good sense of what the city has to offer. Below is our itinerary on how we spent three full days in Hong Kong.
You always need at least one day to familiarize yourself with a new city. Obviously, you won’t be an expert and know the city after day one. I always try and figure out the subway system or transportation and then look for nearby attractions and restaurants. Basically I like to get my bearings straight so I am more comfortable exploring the next day.
I say we, there were six of us in total. We stayed at an AirBnB in the Kowloon District near the Signal Hill Garden. Luckily for us, right across the street was a delicious French Bakery called Eric Kayser Paris. They had great European style pastries and coffee’s, perfect way to get a new day started! I really did not know much about Hong Kong, but I did see that the Avenue of Stars was just a few blocks from where we were staying. Avenue of Stars is Hong Kong’s version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I really wanted to go, mainly to see Jackie Chan’s plaque. We made our way to the Victoria Harbor Waterfront, first thing we noticed was the Bruce Lee Statue, of course everyone had to get their photos taken here replicating Bruce Lee’s karate pose. After posing in front of cameras with the statue we made our way through the Avenue of Stars and saw plaques from other famous stars like Jet Li, but Jackie Chan was my favorite. There are many other plaques along the Avenue, but many are local celebrities that I have never heard of.
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After visiting the Avenue of the Stars, we made our way to Kowloon Park. The park is in Tsim Sha Tsui, which is just a district of Kowloon. Kowloon Park is 33 acres of nature in the heart of the city. The park is a great escape from the hustle and bustle. Here you can simply walk around and enjoy the nature, view flamingos in the lake, swim in the large pool, view the former battery and other historical batteries, or even take a nap in one of the relaxing spaces. I recommend at least an hour in the park, but after walking around we worked up quite the appetite and found a nice local restaurant on our way back to the AirBnB. We stopped in a place called Yuen Kee. This restaurant was exactly what I pictured when thinking of a local restaurant. No thrills, nothing fancy, but great authentic food. I had peking duck and other bbq meat it was so flavorful! Jill had chicken, I love how they just hack up the chicken and put it on the plate. The bones are very sharp, but oh so good!
After dinner, day one was slowly coming to an end, but we were told at 20:00 (8 pm) every night, Hong Kong has a light show along the waterfront. We came here earlier to get a nice view and the whole waterfront was packed with people trying to get a good view, because across the river on Hong Kong Island is where the actual display takes place. on the dot “A Symphony of Lights” begins. Considered the world’s biggest permanent light show, with 42 buildings participating it starts off slowly but grows in intensity. The LED lights are synchronized with music and the laser show lasts for quite some time. To be honest, I was a little underwhelmed by the show. Yes, there were a ton of lights and seeing them scattered throughout Hong Kong Island was impressive, but I was left thinking it was just alright. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad I witnessed it and highly encourage that everyone sees it at least once while in Hong Kong. After the light show, we found ourselves at one of the bars sipping on local brews watching the traditional sail boats in Victoria Harbor, perfect way to end our first day in Hong Kong.
Day 1 Recap
Get familiar with the city and surrounding area
Avenue of the Stars
Kowloon Park
Light Show
Day 2 - Started off With a Hike
You don’t have to go far from the city to find nature in and around Hong Kong. Remember that 75% of Hong Kong is actually lush forests and mountains. My group I traveled here with loves to hike, so we kicked off our second day hiking to the summit of Lion Rock. Lion Rock is probably one of the better look outs in the area, you get great views of the entire city and surrounding area.
Getting to Lion Rock is pretty straight forward, hop in the subway and get off at the Diamond Hill Station or Wong Tai Sin Station. We got off at Wong Tai Sin and ended up walking about 1.5 miles to the trail head. You can grab a cab if you want, but the walk from the station is pretty interesting. Once you get near the trail to Lion Rock, there is a large area where you will see families grilling, I really wish I could join them as the food smelt delicious! At the trailhead, there is a huge sign with warnings of monkeys! I was hopeful to see them, unfortunately we didn’t see any monkeys. Once the hike began, it was pretty quick to the top, just over a mile to the summit and a short walk across the ridge. The hike was elevated, but fairly easy, so I recommend it for anyone. Once you reach the top of the ridge, you get fabulous views of the entire city of Hong Kong. On the descent there are trail networks all over the place, you can either backtrack or try a new trail out! My group opted to take a route on the back side of the mountain and explore a new part of Hong Kong, after all wherever you end up you are a quick subway trip back to the city!
After a solid hour hike down from Lion Rock, we ventured into the Sha Tin Wai district. There was a lot of new construction going on here, lots of new high rises and more modern buildings. We didn’t spend to much time in Sha Tin Wai, but just enough to grab lunch at a local restaurant and walk through an indoor market (my favorite). After exploring the area for an area, my crew hopped on the subway and traveled back to Kowloon.
By this time it was getting later in the evening, Hong Kong does have night markets. We walked around the Temple Street Night Market and Ladies Market and honestly, they were pretty underwhelming. I was hoping they would be full of food vendors and traditional items but instead each stall was a repeat of the next, selling cheap touristy stuff. We stumbled upon a few food vendors on the side which were decent. In general, the night markets are worth a quick walk through but don’t expect to buy anything authentic.
After a long day hiking and exploring Hong Kong, what better way to end the day then sampling a few local beers? Around Kowloon, there were several tap rooms but in the evening they became packed very quickly leaving little room to sit and enjoy, but we found a great local taproom with plenty of space and a great selection of local brews. Kowloon Taproom, this place was great! They had both indoor and outdoor seating and reminded me of typical taprooms in the states. Beer wise they had a nice variety on tap and one could order a pint or flight, definitely my happy place!
Day 2 Recap
Lion Rock Hike
Sha Tin Wai District
Temple Street and Ladies Night Market
Kowloon Taproom
Day 3 - Hong Kong Island and Victoria Peak
Day three in Hong was probably my favorite. After eating at our favorite little French bakery across the street, we hopped on a subway toward Hong Kong Island. When we stepped out of the metro station, I noticed a distinct difference between this side of Hong Kong compared to where we were staying. If I find myself in Hong Kong again, I will definitely be staying on the Hong Kong Island side. It seemed much cleaner, more developed, even the people were different. Before really getting started, my buddy recommended we try Dim Sum, which are basically bite sized dishes that are served on either plates or steamer baskets. We got a little carried away and ordered a ton of different items. One by one the plates started to crowd the table, and although I had no idea what most the items were, it was all very satisfying.
Prior to traveling to new places, I like to watch Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations. I looked up to Anthony Bourdain and usually follow his wisdom. He had an episode on Hong Kong and it started at the Mid-Level Escalators, so it was high on my to do list for Hong Kong. The Mid-Level Escalators is basically a network of escalators spanning several blocks. It is considered the longest covered escalator system in the world and covers about 2600 ft in distance and reaches a height around 440 ft. You can enter and exit the escalators at different levels, they are lined with shops and restaurants.
After playing around on the escalators, we wandered around a bit and found ourselves at a really cool and free park. Hong Kong Park, was kind of like a zoo and botanical garden. Had no plans on coming here, just ended up here and it was beautiful! There were bird and monkey species all throughout the park (caged obviously) as well as botanical gardens, playgrounds, and walking paths. I was amazed that this was all free.
After the park, we went back to the Mid-Level Escalator area and began hiking, more of a steep walk on a road to Victoria Peak. There is a Peak Tram that takes you to the top as well, so you don’t have to walk the 1,811 ft peak. Once at the top there is a large observation deck and trails where you can get incredible views of Hong Kong Island and the rest of the city. There are several gardens up here as well, one of the more popular attractions here is Peak Tower, which is basically a high end shopping mall set on top a portion of the peak. The Peak Tower has restaurants, high end shopping stores, a trick eye museum and other forms of entertainment. It was getting dark, so we all decided to take the tram down and from here wandered around Hong Kong Island at night looking up at the skyscrapers. It was on the third day where we saw the aftermath of protests, we didn’t really see any of the protests in progress, but we missed it by a few minutes as there were still cops lingering and clean up crews. I loved Hong Kong Island and hope to come back to explore the island more. 
Day 3 Recap
Venture to Hong Kong Island
Dim Sum
Mid – Level Escalators
Hong Kong Park
Victoria Peak
What We Missed
With such a big city like Hong Kong, it is simply impossible to see it all. We were busy for days, from morning until night and I never got to see some of the attractions that were high on my list. Here are some of the items I missed my first time around and will have to visit next time.
Tai O Fishing Village – This fishing village is near the airport and is a popular because of the Chinese style stilt homes.
Tian Tan Buddha (The Big Buddha) – A 34 ft tall bronze statue of a seated Buddha.
Macau – Another Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China and is located across the Pearl River from Hong Kong, notable for being one of the most densely populated places on Earth and for gambling.
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