Hong Kong used to be a British colony between the years 1842 to 1997. Now it belongs to China, although they have been allowed to continue to be quite independent from mainland China until the year 2047.

In Hong Kong they speak Cantonese, but most also master Mandarin since that is the official dialect of China. It gets better; everyone speak English! At least those who work in shops, restaurants or any similar profession. That is, everyone that you are likely to talk to as a tourist, can speak English.

The currency in Hong Kong is the Hong Kong dollar, and the exchange rate is currently (February 2009) 1 HKD = 0.13 USD, or 1 USD = 7.75 HKD.

As a fairly experienced Beijing-traveler, I felt a great feeling of relief after a few hours in Hong Kong. Nobody stared at me. People queued up in a straight line, rather than one big chaotic bunch. Few tried to cut in line. No one smoked indoors. It was clean on the streets and on the roads everyone seemed to follow the rules quite okay. It felt just like an unusually orderly western city, despite the fact that Hong Kong now actually belongs to China.

Weather

We visited Hong Kong in early October and it was about 30-33 degrees Celsius (86-91 degrees Fahrenheit) every day. At midnight it was just a couple of degrees cooler. Personally, I like it but if you want to avoid the heat, you should visit Hong Kong during the winter months instead. The temperature rarely drops below 15-20 degrees Celsius (59-68 Fahrenheit). The summer should be avoided if you do not like the heat and a lot of rain.

Read more about Hong Kong

There are more articles about Hong Kong, please read the following:

Attractions in Hong Kong

Shopping in Hong Kong

Food in Hong Kong

Transportation in Hong Kong

Victoria Peak

Victoria Peak is also simply called The Peak. The Peak is a viewpoint situated high on the mountain on the Hong Kong Island, in the Central district. From there you get a great view over the city and you can see all the big skyscrapers from the top.

To get there you can take the metro to Central and from there follow the signs to the tram that goes to the top (Peak Tram). A return ticket costs HK $48 for an adult including entry to the viewpoint called Sky View Terrace. You can pay with your Octopus card if you want. It may be a long queue for the tram, a half-hour waiting period, both up and down, is not unusual.

The stretch of the tram is only 1.4 kilometers but the height difference is almost 400 meters, so it is very steep. Try to get a seat on the right side of the tram on the way up, and on the left side on the way down, and you will get the best view.

If you are a real Hong Kong fan, you probably would like to visit The Peak in both daylight and at night, and why not during sunset as well?

Ocean Park

Ocean Park is an amusement park on the southern part of Hong Kong Island. Here you can find roller coasters and everything else that is commonly found in amusement parks. Admission is just over HK $200 per adult and then all the attractions inside the park are for free. Expect long queues for everything.

To get there, get on bus number 629 from the metro station Admiralty. The bus will go directly to the park and it costs HK $10.6 per adult, using the Octopus card.

Go to their website: Ocean Park in Hong Kong

Disneyland

Disneyland in Hong Kong opened in 2005 and is located on the island of Lantau.

Disney’s famous characters are running around in the park, and they also have staff to help with the photography. They can use their cameras for a fee, or they can use your own camera to take a picture of you, without charge. Everyone is nice and the characters really act as if they were the real cartoon characters.

Disneyland has their own train that goes from Kowloon to Lantau Island. Admission for the park is HK $295 per adult.

Mid-levels escalators

A rather strange sight used by Hong Kong residents to get to and from work. It is very hilly on Hong Kong Island so it is nice to have escalators. It is a long system of escalators, a total of about 800 meters (half a mile) long. In the morning until 10 they go down and at 10 they change direction and goes up.

Although it does not sound like much fun, it was actually very interesting. The residential area next to the escalators is very dense and it is interesting to see how people really live, in contrast to the luxurious skyscrapers. Even if the buildings here look quite worn out and low level, it is not cheap at all to live here.

The escalators can be reached from the metro station Central, and then just walk a few blocks to the west and you should see it.

Star Ferry

Star Ferry is the passenger ferry service that can transport passengers between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. I write this in the attractions section rather than transportation, since there are more efficient ways if you just want to transport yourself (MTR and taxi). The Star Ferry line is however a nice change, and you cannot argue that the view from the boat is way better than from the metro. Prices are low, from just over HK $2 and up.

Kowloon

Nathan Road

Nathan Road is a street, about 3 km (2 miles) long that goes north from the southern tip of Kowloon. Here you can find everything when it comes to shopping. Not just on Nathan Road itself, but also on the parallel streets on both sides. It would certainly take several weeks just to go through all the shops on and around Nathan Road.

Ladies Street

Ladies Street is located in Kowloon, at the metro station Mong Kok, parallel to Nathan Road. It is an outdoor market where they sell clothes, watches, bags, toys, and a lot of junk. It is not only for ladies though; you can find products for everyone here. Bargain hard, but do not spend too much time on a single vendor, try another one if they do not accept your price (and perhaps raise it a little). If the price is acceptable to them, they will call you back when you start to leave. If you stand there for a long time to bargain, they will just try to get as much from you as possible since they know you are very interested.

Fa Yuen Street Market

Located parallel to and just east of the Ladies Street. Here you can find all kinds of sporting goods. Mostly clothes and shoes though, not so much equipment.

Sai Yeung Choi Street

Located parallel to and just west of the Ladies Street. Some block of electronics stores. Cameras, computers, etc…

Hong Kong Island

Hong Kong Island is much more modern than Kowloon and here you can find very shiny and luxury shopping malls. Prices are generally higher than in Kowloon but they also mostly have famous brands.

Li Yuen Street

Two parallel streets located just west of metro station Central, squeezed between the buildings. Clothes, watches, bags, toys, and so on. It was quite hard to bargain here and in general not as cheap as Kowloon.

More shopping

Except all of the above, there are certainly hundreds of places you should visit. There are probably thousands of shops just nearby every metro station in the central areas. Just keep your wallet ready and shop till you drop!

It was actually quite many restaurants that did not have menus in English, and I thought that was kind of surprising, considering the very English influenced history of Hong Kong. In some places, I got a special menu for westerners, which only had pictures on it. Quite convenient.

I took pictures of most of what we ate during the four days we stayed there. I cannot remember what everything is now, but please look at the pictures and use your imagination.

The subway is called metro or MTR in Hong Kong, it actually works really well and the trains run frequent, about one per two minutes during daytime. The price depends on where you are going and range from under HK $4 to HK $26. You can buy a ticket from cash machines at every station, but it is much easier to have a card, a so called Octopus card. You can charge it with money so you do not need to think about buying a ticket every time you want to take the metro.

With the Octopus card, you can also pay in some shops, parking meters, vending machines and so on.

Taxi

It is quite cheap to take a taxi in Hong Kong. The starting price is HK $15 and for that you can go 2 km. Thereafter, it costs HK $1.40 per 200 meters.

The cars are all Toyota Crown, quite large and can hold 5 passengers (three in the back seat and two in the front seat next to the driver).

The first day in Hong Kong, we were ripped off by a taxi driver who charged us HK $5 extra for a receipt. No major loss, but quite annoying. Dishonest drivers know that newly arrived tourists are an easy prey.

Besides that first time, it worked fine. Everyone I met could speak English, so there was never any problem getting anywhere. A big advantage is that most places in Hong Kong also have English names, so you rarely need to worry about the Chinese.

Bus

I myself didn’t take the bus so much in Hong Kong, but it seems to be well developed and work well as far as I could see from the streets. If you do not have the Octopus card, you must pay the exact amount in cash on the bus. You will not get any change back.