Recently retired and eager to start exploring Asia, I just returned from a week in Hong Kong with my daughter. I should start by thanking everyone who has ever said a word here about Hong Kong. I read everything I could before I left; the information was invaluable.

I flew from Halifax to Ottawa, where my daughter attends university. A couple of days later we flew to Toronto, where we boarded Air Canada’s non-stop flight to Hong Kong. We arrived at HKG mid-afternoon on Saturday, bought our Octopus cards, and took the Airport Express to Kowloon Station. The K3 shuttle bus stops at the Kowloon Hotel, which is less than a block from the Salisbury YMCA.

We had booked a Harbour View Suite at the Salisbury. The room was L-shaped, with floor-to-ceiling windows. The sitting room, with two fold-out couches, overlooked the Peninsula Hotel, and the large bedroom looked out over the Hong Kong skyline. There was more than enough storage space in the suite, and the bathroom was large and spotless. As others have commented here before, what the Salisbury lacks in ambience it more than makes up for in location and value for money. The hotel staff are helpful, and there’s Internet access in the cafeteria just off the ground floor lobby.

Sunday

We explored the Kowloon harbourfront, then spent several hours in the Hong Kong Museum of Art. Although the drawing card was a wonderful exhibit of Impressionist paintings on loan from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, we also enjoyed the contemporary Chinese art and the permanent collection of Chinese antiquities. The china and glass exhibits were stunning.

We dropped by the Chinese Arts and Crafts store in Star House, where my daughter bought some earrings, and then plunged into the labyrinth of the Harbour City shopping complex. Just when I realized I should be laying down a trail of bread crumbs, my daughter discovered that you can pick up a mall map at the customer service counter just outside the Lane Crawford store.

In the late afternoon we walked up Nathan Road and through Kowloon Park, eventually browsing through the night market. It’s a series of closely packed stalls selling CDs, DVDs, jewellry, luggage, electronics goods, and accessories. We returned to the hotel via Woosung Street, where we were fascinated by the sights and scents of the restaurants and shops.

Monday

We walked to the jade market, two buildings that lie in the shadow of a highway overpass. There are hundreds of stalls with a variety jewellry, keepsakes, and ornaments. It is a wonderful place to browse, although we did find the stall-holders very eager to sell. My daughter had her first experience bartering, finally settling on an inexpensive bracelet. There is one other interesting feature of the jade market: there are several booths where men and women sit at ancient typewriters waiting for customers who need letters typed in Chinese characters.

We returned along Reclamation Street market, its stalls and storefronts selling produce, meat, fish, flowers, and household goods. We moved on to the Hong Kong Museum of History, which includes eight exhibits on Hong Kong’s natural environment and its history, from earliest settlement to the restoration. We found the displays on modern history most interesting. The material on the Second World War occupation is especially well done. It includes a dramatic photograph of Japanese soldiers in the area of the old KCR station clock tower (the one that stands between the Star Ferry terminal and the Hong Kong Cultural Centre). We had walked by that tower the previous day, and it was remarkable to contrast what was happening there in 1941 with its appearance today. The post-war issues of immigration and public housing were equally interesting.

This is a good point to mention that the weather had been quite cold since our arrival. Chilled to the bone in her light coat, my daughter returned to the Harbour City shopping centre and emerged a couple of hours later with a heavier version.

Tuesday

The South China Morning Post reported that a cold weather warning had been issued for the fourth consecutive day. Seventeen elderly people had been admitted to hospital over the past couple of days suffering from hypothermia. While the temperature only fell to 9 degrees Celsius, it was a damp and penetrating cold. The forecast, fortunately, was for gradual warming for the rest of the week.

We took the Star ferry to Central and then the 15C bus to the lower Peak Tram Terminal. A thickening fog developed, creating the odd sensation of climbing into cloud on the way up to the Peak. Our photographs are interesting--only a few buildings were visible, but it was dramatic nonetheless. We discovered that the Mövenpick restaurant had closed, but we sat happily in a Starbucks-like coffee shop, writing postcards and watching the Peak trams eerily rising and descending in the mist.

During the afternoon we boarded one of the city trams and watched the city unfold from the front seats of the upper deck. I eventually realized that we had ridden off the edge of our map and were now in Quarry Bay. We returned sitting with shoppers and school children on the wooden bench seats of a very crowded tram. It was a wonderful experience, although the ride is bone-jarring.

Wednesday

The weather changed overnight, and for the rest of our week we enjoyed warmer temperatures. We took the MTR to Tung Chung on Lantau Island and then the number 23 bus to Po Lin Monastery. The Tung Chung Road to the south side of the island and the subsequent ascent from the Shek Pik Reservoir to the monastery itself are not to be missed. The roads are narrow, the drops are precipitous, but the views are spectacular.

While the statue of the Buddha is the most obvious feature at Po Lin, the monastery itself is striking in grey, orange, yellow, and rose. The grounds are shaded and peaceful, and the air is scented with blossom and incense. We had the vegetarian lunch, explored the grounds, and climbed up to the Buddha.

The next bus to Mui Wo was almost an hour away, so we taxied to the ferry terminal and then enjoyed the “ordinary ferry” (that’s what the sign says for the slow one) back to Hong Kong. It was a tranquil journey through light mist. On arrival, the Peak appeared clearer than any day we had so far seen it, so we returned to the top for an hour or so. There was still some fog, but we could actually see the shoreline of Kowloon.

Thursday

The 6X to Stanley was the first bus leaving Exchange Square, so we rode that through the Aberdeen tunnel, past Deep Water and Repulse Bays, and on to the market. We enjoyed a few hours here, my daughter negotiating for inexpensive jewellry, while I bought three paintings by an artist from Guangdong. The style is primitive; there is neither shading nor shadows, and the perspective is unusual, but they show joyful village scenes that made me smile. We finished with a walk along the bay and a stroll along Stanley Market Road, where we saw shops selling fresh produce and beautiful flowers.

We rode back in the front seats of the upper deck on a number 6 bus. This route follows the Wong Nai Chung Gap Road across the island and is well worth waiting for at the Stanley bus terminal. We returned to Kowloon, where we walked in faint sunshine along the waterfront promenade.

Friday

We walked through the Western District using one of the Frommer’s walks. This was a fascinating expedition, from the sophistication of Shanghai Tang to the gutting of fish at the Sheung Wan Civic Centre. Along the way, we explored the stalls of Li Yeun East and West and Wing Kut Street, a snake shop on Hillier, a bird shop on Cleverly, plus the myriad of stores selling medicines, ginseng, and dried seafoods. We bought Oolong tea at Geow Yong Tea Hong on Bonham Strand East (a delightful experience during which we were offered a sample of tea) and finally looked at the funeral shops on Queen’s Road West and the antique stores along Hollywood Road.

We finished our week dining at an Italian restaurant on Elgin Street in Soho. We have friends who have recently moved to Hong Kong to take up employment, and we spent an interesting couple of hours hearing about how they were settling in.

Saturday

Halfway through the morning we learned that our flight back to Toronto was going to be delayed for five hours. The staff at the Salisbury gladly extended our departure time to 4 pm without additional charge. Mid-afternoon, we taxied back to the Kowloon AE station, where we used the downtown airline check-in facility to get our boarding passes and to drop off our luggage. We waited out the balance of the delay at Thai Airways’ Royal Orchid Lounge at HKG.

After many years of vacationing in France, our first venture to Asia was a wonderful experience. Hong Kong is vibrant and intriguing. Public transportation is inexpensive, predictable, and easy to navigate. We ate a variety of meals, both Chinese and western, in places such as a noodle and dumpling shop on Lock Road, the Po Lin Monastery, a Délifrance café, the Salisbury YMCA, and the restaurant in Soho. All, we felt, were reasonable in price.

We did discover one thing that I hadn’t seen mentioned here on Fodors, so I will pass it on as a bit of advice. Our guidebooks indicated that many of the markets start at 10 in the morning. Being early birds, we tended to arrive at places such as the jade market or Li Yeun Street East just after 10, only to find that some of the stalls were only starting to set up. It isn’t a problem if you intend to linger, but if you plan a short visit to a market, it might be best to time your visit so that everything is set up.

The sights, the sounds, the scents of a busy, crowded, city … we loved them all. Oddly, one of our enduring memories is the profusion of remarkable bilingual signs of instruction (“No Hawking“), warning (“Please aware of sudden noise“), and inspiration (“Let us keep all places clean and tidy“). The most charming was the sign on the begonias along the promenade in Tsim Sha Tsui: “Care the Lovely Plants.“

Anselm

Excellent report. A comment about the markets. Many markets and shops do open very late in Hong Kong, as you found out. The exceptions are the bird market and the flower market in Kowloon. Those can be visited early in the day. In the morning hours, many older people will bring their birds to the bird market - where there are places to sit around. So, not only do you see the birds for sale, but also people's pet birds too.

wonderful report...i never hear enough about HK and wish i could visit there more often

rkkwan and rhkkmk, thanks for the comments. You were both inspirations for this trip, as far as I was concerned. I'd read so much before we arrived that I felt quite comfortable from the second we landed.

I do wish we'd seen the bird market and flower market in Kowloon. Had we known first thing Saturday morning that our flight was going to be that late, we could have walked up to both.

Oh well, just another good reason to go back. My wife and I are starting to think about a round-the-world excursion in a couple of years and Hong Kong will certainly be one of our stops.

Anselm