Happy Hong Kong

Obviously we didn't just eat in Hong Kong, there's plenty to see and do and we managed quite a packed itinerary in our five day stay. Our first adventure out into the crowded and claustrophobic streets of Hong Kong was to take a ride on what was once the world’s longest escalator system which provides a means for many Hong Kong commuters to travel from the residential area high in the mountain down to the business district and then back again – in fact the escalators switch direction at 10:30am each day. Despite being built to relieve traffic on the roads, the escalators have become something of a tourist attraction in their own right, with the streets either side of them lined with all sorts of restaurants and cafes which you can pop into on your way by, and provided some interesting if not a little unorthodox entertainment for the morning. On reaching the top, we meandered down the hill and took a tour of some of Hong Kong’s famous street art complete with the next generation of instagram celebrity wannabes posing in front of them.

No doubt if you ask someone to sum up Hong Kong in a word, at least a few of them will probably mention shopping. Presumably due to its dense population, it seems like almost every building houses some sort of shopping mall on its first few floors. Perhaps the most famous of these is the mall in Times Square which spreads across 14 floors and houses over 200 shops as well as a decent number of restaurants and a cinema. Pictures and words cannot do justice to the scale of this place. We spent a few hours wandering around, gawking at the shiny goods we had no hope of purchasing. Another of Hong Kong’s top shopping attractions is Chungking Mansions located in Kowloon and famed for it’s knock off electronics. Sadly, we visited on a Sunday meaning most of the stalls were shut but it did mean we had plenty of time for the last stop on our mall tour - Whampoa. Conveniently located in an area of the same name, this mall is housed in an enormous concrete luxury ship. I suspect the novelty of the ship is the most appealing part of this one as on the inside it’s much the same as all rest but nevertheless it still provided us with a few hours of window shopping fun.

In between our mall hopping we made some time to visit a couple of cute animal cafes. The first was a cat cafe located up a lift with questionable safety standards called Cat Island. The place was clean and the coffee was OK if a tad pricey. Sadly, however, the main attractions were a little too lazy and we had only a single feline visitor to our table during our stay – the rest were lying down having a nap. The second cafe was called Rabbit Land and was home to a great number of small balls of fluff who happily ran around us as we sat on the floor. Here we were also able to buy some rabbit feed, AKA grass, enabling us to entice our furry friends over for a pet. To our amusement the rabbits were also toilet trained, doing their business in small plastic bowls in the corners of the room. Whilst not strictly a cafe, we also made time to visit the bird market which sell not only birds but also live grasshoppers you can feed to them. Not one for the vegetarians but it's certainly interesting to wonder down the small alley listening to a cacophony of bird squarks and insect screeches.

It might seem like outside of retail therapy and transit systems there isn’t much to do in Hong Kong (weirdly the Hong Kong MTR is 12th best thing to do in Hong Kong on trip advisor) and for the most part you’d be right. There are, however, a few temples dotted around. The Man Mo temple, located on Hollywood Road, is dedicated to the civil/literature god Man Tai and the martial god Mo Tai. Whilst it is quite small, the inside contains intricate figures from Taoism and the air is filled with smoke from incense hanging from the ceiling. We also visited the Wong Tai Sin Temple, another Taoist temple in the north of Kowloon, which is significantly larger than the Man Mo temple. Here we found people praying to the many colourful shrines as well as statues of the Chinese Zodiac. The last temple we visited was a little different to the others since, in order to get there, you have to take a trip on the Ngong Ping 360 cable car which provides excellent views of Hong Kong and it’s airport. Rather unfortunately when we went it was thoroughly overcast and we spent a significant portion of the journey being only able see a few meters ahead. Once we arrived at the top we were greeted with yet more shopping opportunities as well as some western faves like Starbucks which we just about resisted. Walking on from the shops you go along a road lined with more statues of the Chinese Zodiac to the Po Lin Monastery and the Tian Tan Buddha. There were also some stray (?) cows wondering around but I’d advise not to get too close as we saw one poor woman get violently coughed on. Ew. Walking around the monastery we found several buildings in the now familiar Taoist style along with some comically large incense sticks. Going up the hill we found the enormous Tian Tan Buddha but due to the low lying cloud we had to make do with only seeing his knees.

Overall we had a great time in Hong Kong and it was nice to get one last breath of western niceties before heading into mainland China.