THE VIBRANT FOODIE HEAVEN: HONG KONG
Victoria Harbour
Hong Kong was full of surprises! We didn’t expect this much Western impact and many foreign expats, shopping malls, so clean streets, rocket high prices and green hills with lovely beaches a stone’s throw away from the city!
Western impact: you can get everything in Hong Kong, all brands and all restaurant chains, almost everyone speaks good English and are helpful with tourists. People waited in line for public transport which we did not see earlier in China. There are huge expat communities, mainly from the UK, and we saw tons of nannies - as we learnt, from the Philippines since local labour costs have significantly increased - looking after expat Western children.
Shopping: The city is a shopper’s paradise, especially of luxury brands. We haven’t come across a similar place where nearly every single doorway on the street leads to a shopping mall! As the locals explained, the target audience is actually not the local people from Hong Kong but those from mainland China, who come here for shopping luxury products as status symbols. People originally from Hong Kong speak their own Cantonese dialect which is different from even the closest mainland Chinese city, Shenzhen, where a slightly different accent of Cantonese is spoken.
Foodie paradise: Hong Kong is a hub for Chinese and many other types of Asian and international food. The food variety is extremely wide and the quality is world class. In fact, there are many Michelin star or recommended restaurants around the city, some of which are local eateries at very affordable prices: you can eat noodles or dim sums in some of them for the best price in the world, for around £5!
Sky-rocketing prices in Asia: food in most restaurants cost similar or only slightly lower than at a mid-level place in London – you need to look for the local places where prices are much better; flat rentals cost about double than in London which is already shockingly high compared to other European cities – so actually for many expats their company pays more for their rent than their salary, clothes from Western brands also cost more than in Europe. Hotel prices are really expensive too, hence as budget travellers now we experienced again the concept of mini-rooms which we first came across in Tokyo – we had a room of about 10sqm where we had to jump into the bed from the end of the room as there was not enough place to stand next to it.
Scenery around the city: in less than an hour we could get out of the centre and found ourselves at a completely different place away from the vibrant city and skyscrapers. The hilly area on the Southern part of the Hong Kong island offers stunning view over the city and the sea as well as some great hiking options. After a 2-3-hour hike along the mountain ridge called the Dragon’s Back we reached the Big Wave Beach, a nice beach for surfing and just relaxing. We walked further to the bigger Shek-O Beach, another spot with a nice holiday vibe
View from the Dragon's Back hike
We spent a day looking around on the Hong Kong island over the Victoria Harbour, crossing the sea by the famous Star Ferry that has been carrying travellers for 150 years. We visited the Hong Kong Park and the Zoo which are nice little green spots in the sea of shiny office buildings, both with free entrance.
The Zoo with its Aviary in Hong Kong Park is a good place to escape from the busy city
Then we took the popular tram up to the Peak, which is a hill overlooking the city. It's worth getting to the tram on time to avoid the hour-long queue which got us as a surprise...
The famous city skyscraper view from the Peak
The Michelin-recommended eatery on the top of the Peak serves budget price beef noodle soup with shrimp-filled dumplings called wonton which was a real treat!
This island of the many in the city also has the oldest Buddhist temple, Man Mo, which was the original base and gathering place for the Chinese community. The temple itself doesn't seem to be too different from other Buddhist temples in China, however the insence spirals hanging from the ceiling with their dense smog gave a very special atmosphere to the place.
By chance we also encountered the unique double decker tram! It's one of the icons of the city, being so rare in Asia. A great end to the day was a trip to the night market to test how different the sweet and sour sauce, a famous typical Cantonese dish, is compared to the European version – it actually tasted quite similar! We also tried sogo, which is a desert consisting of gelatinous balls in coconut milk topped with mango slices – yummy!
We were lucky to have a with a fantastic dinner with our friend, Felicity, who currently works in the city and could share with us many insights about the local life. We got to try culinary masterpieces from the Cantonese cuisine, like dim sum of many different forms (savoury ones filled with pork or shrimp, as well as deep-fried sweet ones filled with custard, sesame or bean paste), noodle soup and many others!
On our way to the airport we then made a last stop at the Tim Ho Wan dumpling restaurant, another budget place with Michelin stars, to try a few exciting meals with rice noodle. It was a good way to say goodbye to a city with so much exciting vibe and lovely people!
