I'm staying at the Royal Plaza hotel in Kowloon next week and am wodering if there are some internet cafes nearby? Or affordable wifi would work too as I will have my laptop. Thanks for input!

Pacific Coffee (which looks like a clone of Starbucks) has free computer stations in their stores.

Their closest store to the Royal Plaza may be the one in Langham Place. www.pacificcoffee.com

I won't suggest going to one of the numerous "Internet Bars" in Hong Kong. At best, they are places where teenagers play online shooting games; at worse, they are actually whorehouses.

Forgot to say there's another one in the Festival Walk shopping mall, which one of the largest and biggest in Hong Kong. From your hotel, it's just one KCR stop away at Kowloon Tong.

A couple more ideas.

The Kowloon Central Library is about a 10-minute walk from your hotel. They have internet terminals there. When busy, it's limited to 15-minute sessions. But often you can use as long as you want.

There are some paid wi-fi services in Hong Kong. For example, Tramis Wireless have hotspots at a lot of KFCs. [Now, whether you want to work or surf the web in a KFC is another matter.] HK$18 per day, or $108/month. hk1.triamis.com/wireless/

There may be other service providers, but I don't know for sure.

thanks for that info! do the computer stations you mentioned (coffee shop, library) require me to bring my own ethernet cord? thanks again!

At Pacific Coffee and the library, you are using their computer terminals. I don't know if you can plug in your own computer or not.

I don't have a laptop, and simply go to those places to check email for free.... [Okay, maybe not free, as lattes at Pacific Coffee cost the same as Starbucks here, so slighly more.]