What's To Do In Hong Kong?

[Mousehound]

By day 4 I'm overjoyed to be leaving HK.

Wife likes the shopping there and Singapore though.

Are you joking? What can you not like about HK? I miss it big time! I would love to find a new job there and move back.

I worked there for 4 years and after a week there I was ready to get out and after a week away I was desperate to get back.

[DGIE]

Witness the beauty of Boracay Beach in the Philippines

[NongKhaiKid]

First "Quai Lo" is not a foreign devil! Means Ghost Man...and ghost because of the white color as a ghost!

The female will be Quai Mui!

Hong Kong Disney - Nice with younger kids ...getting better but still not for the older kids (adults)!Not compareable to US or Paris!

The Peak - My opinion overrated! Yes a nice view but that's all.

Sky 100 - for a nice view!

Ocean Park - Fun for adults and kids! Nice old cable car with the cute colorfull cabins!

Ngong Ping 360 cable car - Attracting more guests as the Buddha due to the nice view (on good weather days!) Some days you can see till Macau. Depending on tide the shell pickers in Tung Chung Bay...great through the glass bottom cabin!Now perfect views over the huge Hong Kong- Zuhai- Macau project!

Big Buddha - Nice religious site! Due to the many guest delivered by the cable car, the monastry is growing. New temple with 10000Buddhas.... Again on nice days you have a perfect view over Chinese sea!

Lantau island - due to being a nature park (limited access by taxi or bus) it has sure one of the best beaches in HK!

Note: Take the cable car up to the Big Buddha and go down by bus. Sure a pleasant day!After that if you still can walk some outlet shopping at City Gate Tung Chung.

Tai O - Smal fishing village on Lantau. Nice for a walk!

Sai Kung - Nice fish market directly from the boats but getting more a tourist thing... Sunday it is great due to all the locals coming there with their dogs...funny dog show!

Kowloon: From Sham Sui Po (Computer) over Mong Kok(clothes and more) till down to Tsim Sha Tsui(designer shops) a place for shopping maniacs.

Note: Short but nice to take the ferry from Tsim Sha Tsui to step over to Central or Wan Chai!

Light show at 8pm at Tsim Sha Tsui pier! Not a huge thing but if it fitts in the plan...

Bus tours - There are serveral bus tours through HK showing the street live. So many street, shops, markets that you can spend a lot of time and never will explore all!

Stanley Market - Overrated and more the place where the bored local Quai lo & Mui go the weekend due to western restaurants!

HK Heli service - Heli flight to see HK from above!

Food - You can get all! This page is a good help: www.openrice.com

Macau - hmmm, yes for gambler but else only a recommendation with a luxury hotel stay 1 or 2 nights!

Shen Zen (China) - forget it! Nothing you will buy there will last and is only crap. Was more popular for cheap night life between the mal

First "Quai Lo" is not a foreign devil! Means Ghost Man...and ghost because of the white color as a ghost!

The female will be Quai Mui!

Hong Kong Disney - Nice with younger kids ...getting better but still not for the older kids (adults)!Not compareable to US or Paris!

The Peak - My opinion overrated! Yes a nice view but that's all.

Sky 100 - for a nice view!

Ocean Park - Fun for adults and kids! Nice old cable car with the cute colorfull cabins!

Ngong Ping 360 cable car - Attracting more guests as the Buddha due to the nice view (on good weather days!) Some days you can see till Macau. Depending on tide the shell pickers in Tung Chung Bay...great through the glass bottom cabin!Now perfect views over the huge Hong Kong- Zuhai- Macau project!

Big Buddha - Nice religious site! Due to the many guest delivered by the cable car, the monastry is growing. New temple with 10000Buddhas.... Again on nice days you have a perfect view over Chinese sea!

Lantau island - due to being a nature park (limited access by taxi or bus) it has sure one of the best beaches in HK!

Note: Take the cable car up to the Big Buddha and go down by bus. Sure a pleasant day!After that if you still can walk some outlet shopping at City Gate Tung Chung.

Tai O - Smal fishing village on Lantau. Nice for a walk!

Sai Kung - Nice fish market directly from the boats but getting more a tourist thing... Sunday it is great due to all the locals coming there with their dogs...funny dog show!

Kowloon: From Sham Sui Po (Computer) over Mong Kok(clothes and more) till down to Tsim Sha Tsui(designer shops) a place for shopping maniacs.

Note: Short but nice to take the ferry from Tsim Sha Tsui to step over to Central or Wan Chai!

Light show at 8pm at Tsim Sha Tsui pier! Not a huge thing but if it fitts in the plan...

Bus tours - There are serveral bus tours through HK showing the street live. So many street, shops, markets that you can spend a lot of time and never will explore all!

Stanley Market - Overrated and more the place where the bored local Quai lo & Mui go the weekend due to western restaurants!

HK Heli service - Heli flight to see HK from above!

Food - You can get all! This page is a good help: www.openrice.com

Macau - hmmm, yes for gambler but else only a recommendation with a luxury hotel stay 1 or 2 nights!

Shen Zen (China) - forget it! Nothing you will buy there will last and is only crap. Was more popular for cheap night life between the males.

Gwai does mean devil as in Mor Gwai - The Devil

[theoldgit]

Worth noting that for us seniors it's worth investing in a Seniors Octupus Card, any journey on the MTR or bus is capped at HK$2, including the journey from the airport, though not on the Airport Link.

Holders of the Seniors Octupus Card also travel free on the Star Ferry, and get discount on the Peak railway.

It's available to all nationalities.

[ThaiPauly]

Worth noting that for us seniors it's worth investing in a Seniors Octupus Card, any journey on the MTR or bus is capped at HK$2, including the journey from the airport, though not on the Airport Link.

Holders of the Seniors Octupus Card also travel free on the Star Ferry, and get discount on the Peak railway.

It's available to all nationalities.

How old does a "senior" have to be?

[Lancashirelad]

Was there in March. Found it expensive, but most interesting to see. Agree about decent food being difficult to find.

Do a couple of open top bus tours to get your bearings and ideas of what else you'd like to see.

Treat the wife to afternoon tea at the 5* Peninsula Hotel - its only!!! around US$50.

[Millard]

If you and your wife enjoy museums, the Hong Kong Museum of History is top notch. It even has replicas of old Hong Kong streets. Plus the admission is amazingly low for such a world class museum. (most likely the HK goverment provides a large subsidy). Also, it's a nice reprieve from the sweltering weather.

A tip based on my personal preference: the exhibits are in chronological order, so I found the beginning to be rather boring. I find geology and prehistoric topics rather dull since it's more scientific and doesn't delve into the local culture.

[Shot]

Lantau Island has the world's largest outdoor Buddha, covered in gold at Po Lin Monastery. You can drive, or take new gondola, or take a boat. The gondolas are new and they've built a little 'village' of shops at the top. Pretty commercial, unfortunately. In the 'old days', you had to take a boat to Silvermine, then a bus. It made the whole journey more of a 'pilgrimage' but the gondolas are faster and the ones with the glass bottoms are pretty cool.

BTW, if you take the boat, when you land, you are very close to Tong Fuk Beach, (I know, I know.. choice of name). The village has holiday rentals and, while there's not much to see there, it's a major cable-head for undersea cables, part of Fiber Link Around the Globe (28K Km). so there's a good chance some of your internet traffic goes through that tiny building!

Back to Po Lin. Be sure to pay the (small) additional fee to go inside the Buddah and see the shards of his remains. The hike up to the top is worth it. (ice cream and cold soda machines at the top). Also, the vegetarian restaurant at the base has good food.

Other things to do in HK; if you're so inclined, the Tea Museum, HK Zoo and Arboretum are all close together. The arboretum is really nice and I try to visit it and the zoo whenever I take someone new to HK. The zoo isn't as nice as Singapore's, but still good.

Food: HK and Singapore seem to be rivals for best food in the world. Pretty much any cuisine you want. I could go on and on re/this topic. :-)

Okay.. the Peak. Take the cable car to the top of Victoria Peak. There are shops, of course, a nice view and an excellent ice-cream shop. (detecting a theme here?). The bottom of the cable car isn't far from the zoo, etc. and also not far from Hollywood Rd. where there are antique shops and one of the oldest temples in HK.

Come down from the Peak (taxi) going the other way, down to Stanley Market. A rabbit-warren of stalls with great bargains. Negotiating is part of the process. Just off to the right (facing the water) is the Smugglers' Inn. (a farang style bar, where both my children had their first legal drink!)

Taxi return, but this time, come back via the tunnel and go by the race track. You'll see some nice houses and an unusual building (huge) with a big square hole in it. The hole is for Feng Shui.. so the building doesn't block the energy flow down the hill. I've heard that the hole was an afterthought but it seems like that would be bad engineering so probably not. (now if this were in LOS, I'd believe it!)

I think someone already mentioned the night-markets in Kowloon.

Enjoy! Just thinking about this makes me wish I were there right now!

My wife & I found the giant Buddha & gondola to be the most overrated boring pointless day wasted - utterly uselless - all the way to the top & there is NOTHING there worth seeing. its barren, bleak & the giant Buddha was BORING. Evryone seems to go there because its supposed ot be good but its not.

By contrast the Cable car to Victoria Peak was a great outing.

One of the best things we did was to find (have to look) for a fluent english speakign taxi drier and got him to drive us all over HK Island.

Star Ferry was worth a trip too.

Publc transport is awesome & the streets are nicely planned out with a "feng Shui" feel to them.

The food in HK is rubbsih!! Don't listen to any PR bull*** about HK food being great. Food in Thialand is in a differnt league. How anyone can rate HK or SIngapore food after being in Thialand is beyond belief. We found food to be rubbish almost everywhere and often resorted to eating 7-11 snacks. We found only 1 or 2 decdent places to eat in a week. Afterwards people cited to us "Oh but you have to know where to go" - Well if you "have to know" then that proves ts crap! If you dont trip over great food then its hardly a great food city is it!??!? (Singapore was easier to find okay food but regualr food there was nothing special albeit great value).

We did a 7 hour Gray Line tour which included the gondola, and the world’s largest sitting Buddha, along with a few other things. It was a rainy day. We had a blast.

Food: We did our homework and used http://www.openrice.com/english/restaurant/index.htm

Great Thai, Italian, and Chinese around every corner.

[Millard]

As people have said, HK is an international culinary paradise. My favorite is Chinese BBQ. They're easily identifiable by the hanging cooked meat displayed in their windows. At the top of my list is their roast goose.

[taxout]

Just about everything's been mentioned except Lamma Island. Take an early evening ferry there, stroll through the village -- no cars -- then have a nice seafood meal before heading back. Relaxing after spending a day in the crowded urban areas.

If you take some of the suggestions to go hiking, remember that like Thailand, HK's summer heat and humidity can make uphill stretches very difficult. You must have water with you! And check the weather forecast. HK closes down at the approach of serious typhoons (SIgnal 8 or above) and rain storms (Black Warning). As mentioned, pollution is often very serious, and can ruin a visit to the Peak, not to mention your lungs.

No horse racing in the summer due to the weather.

Sixty-five or older to be a "senior" on the MTR.

[theoldgit]

Worth noting that for us seniors it's worth investing in a Seniors Octupus Card, any journey on the MTR or bus is capped at HK$2, including the journey from the airport, though not on the Airport Link.

Holders of the Seniors Octupus Card also travel free on the Star Ferry, and get discount on the Peak railway.

It's available to all nationalities.

How old does a "senior" have to be?

65, I've just looked at my card and it's actually called an Elder Card, I got it at the Arrivals Hall in the Airport.

http://hongkongextras.com/_senior_visitor_discounts.html

[hermeser1]

would suggest you to eat everything!