HKG

The Hong Kong Star Ferry ride; the Promenade for a romantic and quiet night stroll; Peak Tram to Victoria Peak; Stanley Market; SOHO, south of Hollywood Road; Aberdeen; Kowloon's open-air markets, especially the Temple Street night market; Lantau Island's Giant Buddha; and Tai O fishing village are all highlights of a trip. Incense is in the air once departing the MRT and arriving onto the street, along with lots of bright neon lights and voices calling to visit the clubs at night in the Wanchai district.

Quick Tips:

The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) would be a good resource. Stop in at one of their Hong Kong locations to speak with a friendly, helpful staff member who will assist you with suggestions and tell you where to go, how to get there, and what to see.

Gay & Lesbian Hong Kong, dragaoncastle.net, Gaytimes, GayUK Hong Kong, Dining around Hong Kong Attractions, and Utopia-Asia are also good resources.

Best Way To Get Around:

The MRT underground transit moves a lot of people efficiently, but not with much comfort, except that it does have air-conditioning. Ferries are still inexpensive but slow. Double-decker trams and buses are fun to ride. Taxis are the only way to travel at night, but they charge a premium when public transit stops for the night.

The Salisbury YMCA of Hong Kong is like a regular hotel, except that it's run by YMCA. It's still expensive, but cheaper than regular hotels. There's an electronic room safe available and daily maid service. We were upgraded for one night because the room reserved for us was taken, but the place got rather expensive for us after that, so we checked out and went to stay at a guesthouse.

Star Guest House was clean, and newly built when we stayed there. Our room was tight and small, with just barely enough room for two beds on opposite walls with a narrow walkway between the beds. But it was comfortable enough to just change clothes, take showers, and sleep.

Besides being a very small, clean facility, the name of the manager sticks in my mind even today: Charlie Chan. He also runs Lee Garden Guest House.

Star Guest House was clean, and newly built when we stayed there. Our room was tight and small, with just barely enough room for two beds on opposite walls with a narrow walkway between the beds. But it was comfortable enough to just change clothes, take showers, and sleep.

Besides being a very small, clean facility, the name of the manager sticks in my mind even today: Charlie Chan. He also runs Lee Garden Guest House.

Wharney Hotel Hong Kong is a decent enough hotel. The lobby is impressive and the room is adequate, with two twin beds, in a somewhat older hotel in the heart of the Wanchai District. A hair dryer, electric hot water kettle, and mini-bar are available. This would be considered a budget-class hotel by Hong Kong standards, as hotels tend to be quite expensive. By US standards, it would be considered moderate. It costs $69 per night. It's right where the nightclubs are, if you're interested in that. Dim Sum available with its own restaurant here, but we went across the street instead.

MRT Wanchai Station, exit C, two minutes.

Kowloon Railway Station, Hong Kong Macau Ferry Terminus, 10 minutes.

China Harbour City Ferry Terminus, 15 minutes

Email info@gdhotels.net

Pruton Prudential Hotel, managed by the Pruton Network, is cheaply built, as indicated by its metal-key access. There is furniture in the room that is comfortable enough and slide screens on the windows to totally block out all light. The shower head didn’t adjust and sprayed inadequately, even with a strong water flow. Water stains on the bathroom floor indicated that a water leakage problem has been ongoing. There was an electric hair-dryer, electric hot-water kettle, mini-fridge stocked with chargeable extras, security safe in room, rooftop view of the haze in the city, swimming pool (was drained and closed for winter), fitness facility with a treadmill, wireless broadband Internet for an additional fee, restaurant, and lounge. The two central elevators of its four elevators are glass. This place cost HK$600, plus a 13% tax per night, for two twin beds in one room. This was a winter rate.

Descend from lobby directly into the MTR Jordan Station.

Email: pruton@biznetvigator.com

This is a good dim sum place that was recommended by a hotel staff member.

We were seated right away, even though we didn’t have a reservation for this fairly busy place. There are 100 items you check off of a list, but it's all in Chinese. There's a 35-item limited version in English. Item #15 off the English menu, baked turnip rolls, were the best of all the items we ordered, and item #28, mango pudding, was also excellent.

We were curious about this place, as our hotel was right across the street from it. There's a window here facing the street, and we saw different people at this window at different times of the day and wondered what was over here.

Hours: 7am-1am

Credit cards are accepted with a minimum of HK$150 (US$19.23)

Wing Wah was recommended to us to try as the noodles are still hand made instead of machine made. The restaurant name is only in Chinese so look for this place by its street address. Their menu has both Chinese and English, but the person working at the time of our visit didn't speak English. I ordered the shrimp dumpling soup and my partner ordered beef brisket. Since we didn't order any noodles, I couldn't say whether or not these are any good. The items we did try were alright, but portions were smallish and didn't quite satisfy.

Established in 1994, it has all sorts of promotions:

Monday: CrewSin' is 20% airline and hospitality staff from 9pm; Crazy Hour, HKD25, with standard drinks, daily 6 to 7pm; Vodka Night, free Vodka Tuesdays, 10pm to 11pm; and the set lunch is HKD69 on weekdays.

Ladies Night Wednesdays is at 9pm with free champagne and a free buffet. Spend HKD65 on drinks and eat for free Thursdays from 7 to 9pm; go to Cocktail Night, all cocktails, HKD25 on Thursdays from 9pm; and there is HKD19 Corona Sundays. This bar has a list of 366 drinks.

We both found the place just opening up and each ordered the Truckstop All Day Breakfast HKD89, with pork sausages, bacon, two eggs, fried, scrambled or poached, hash brown, baked beans, chips, mushrooms, tomato, and toast or fried bread. Free coffee or tea is included.

We like our eggs sunny side up and runny by cooking in low heat, but like most places, they don't know how to do eggs sunny side up right, cooking the eggs in too high a heat, making them not runny and with the whites bubbled by the high heat. Service for another cup of coffee was painstakingly slow.

This place is a bar also. It was relatively peaceful and quiet by day except for the Hong Kong traffic. By night the customers are dancing on top of the tables, noisy, packed, enjoying themselves. This is not a place to eat by night.

There is free Internet access for customers.

Email: carnegie@netvigator.com

Main Street's Stanley Bar and Cafe offers set menus or a Menu du Chef with lobster and prawn cocktail, Boston lobster and prawns with mango dressing; two little soups, clear oxtail and yellow pumpkin with chili cream; New Zealand filet mignon ("Cafe de Paris"); fresh white and green asparagus and new roast baby potatoes or grilled Cajun Sole Fillet in a cape-lime butter sauce; and hot fresh berries in a raspberry liqueur sauce on vanilla ice cream. They also serve espresso coffee or rose tea.

The menu costs either HK$148; HK$165, with dessert; or HK$185, with a glass of wine.

I also ordered a mango smoothie, HK$38, which was much too sweet, with the sweetness overpowering the mango taste.

The atmosphere was noisy, with a TV in the background. The food quality was mixed, as the yellow pumpkin soup, cocktail, and berry dessert were very good, but the mignon was overcooked when I asked for rare. The main course was not very good. Service was good.

There is free Internet access for customers, but only one station up front in a tight space.

Queen's Cafe is located inside this very large shopping mall and has a reasonable set lunch menu for $60, which includes a choice of soup, entree, and coffee or tea. But once inside, I saw other items that included rack of lamb -- rare for $130 -- lobster salad for $180, and a mango shake. My partner ordered the set lunch menu with salmon entree choice. At the set menu lunch, it was a deal. What I ordered sent the bill skyrocketing. There is a ten percent service charge added. I wanted to splurge; how often do I have a chance for a rack of lamb or a lobster salad? I didn't need to do that, and it was wasteful ordering such expensive items and so much food. The mango shake was good. I probably would have been satisfied with one of the set lunch menu choices and saved the pocketbook and the time spent waiting for the food to show up.

The food was good, not great; their service was agonizingly slow; the atmosphere was good; and the noise level moderate to loud, depending on how busy the place is. The place is a deal if you stick to the set lunch menu and if you're not in a hurry.

Afterwards, I agreed that I didn't need to order what I did. The set lunch menu would have been fine, as would selecting a place off the streets, busy with lots of Chinese customers.

Credit cards accepted.

Good View Seafood Restaurant was the restaurant we selected to try after walking around the area, searching for an ATM, and browsing around a bit after finding that they only accept cash. There was another larger, probably more expensive place, but we decided to come back to this place knowing that they also have an English menu, though it was a much smaller selection, based on what they believe the westerner would want to eat.

One item that wasn't on the English menu was a steamed fish, which I definitely wanted to try. I asked for a steamed fish with scallions, ginger, soy sauce, and oil, a fairly standard way to prepare steamed fish. Our waiter pointed out the fish for us in the tank at the front of the restaurant, caught it with a net, and within twenty to twenty-five minutes, it was served last, after all the other items we ordered were already served.

I might have ordered some other items, had it been translated to English, but it was fairly good what we ordered, including the fish.

Game Boys is a gay sauna. It was our last night in Hong Kong prior to departing, and I wanted to visit this place, even if it was quite late. The place was closing within an hour after we arrived, so there weren't that many people there, but I saw some patrons leaving as we arrived who looked very interesting. Steam rooms, saunas, showers, videos, lots of dark spaces, and some rooms were on an availability basis.

They rent out lockers, operated by two keys, for HK$98. I had a day backpack with me, which just barely fit with my street clothes, and there was a lower shelf for shoes.

Monday-Friday 3pm-1am, Saturday 2pm-3am, Sunday 2pm-1am

Phone: 2574-3215-7

Bindo is a gay sauna where men cruise other men. This place is quite small. There are many small rooms where you can have some privacy for a short time.

Telephone: 2377 9844

Victoria Peak is a very popular destination, and getting to the top via the The Peak Tram, a funicular railway, is one of Hong Kong's top attractions. The Peak Tram is owned by Peak Tramways Company, Limited, a subsidiary of The Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotels, Ltd. It's best to go during twilight hours when the city lights light up and the sky is going dark.

Hours: 7am-midnight

Getting to The Peak Tram Lower Terminus:
MTR Central J2 exit

Walk about 10 minutes or:

Citybus 125 from Charter Rd and Jackson Rd (10am-midnight)

First Bus 15C from Star Ferry Pier (Central) (10am-11:45pm)

Star Ferry is good, cheap, romantic transportation across the harbour with service to Hung Hom, Central, Wan Chai, and Tsim Sha Tsui (TST). Fares (highest HK$5.30) and schedules vary, but the ferry generally runs from 7am to 7pm, except between Wan Chai and Tsim Sha Tsui, which goes on till about 10:50pm. There's a monthly pass available. Seniors are free with HK ID or senior citizen card. Service is fairly frequent.

Go on the upper deck (first class) to take advantage of the harbour view.

Phone: 2367 7065, Fax: 2118 6028, Ferry Booking Phone: 2118 6203, Email

This is a men's sauna. It was hard to find for us, as there is a new and a old Temple St. This is located on the old Temple Street, not the new Temple Street, where the night market is.

There are two floors, showers, steam room, a TV lounge, adult videos, resting areas, dark areas, two very small karaoke rooms, one Internet station, coin-operated drinks, and gay Asian adult videos available for purchase. We rented a locker, disrobed, showered, relaxed, and had some fun. Condoms are available at the check-in desk. The man who runs this place is a real sweetie, with a very friendly, nice personality.

MTR Yau Ma Tei station, exit C.
Open 24 hours

Mon-Fri 11am-4pm $45 for 8 hours, 4pm-11am $66 for 10 hours; Sat.,Sun., and holidays $66 for 10 hours; $10/hr. after

Telephone: 852/385-6652

Lab is a karaoke bar frequented by a gay clientele and is located on the third floor, air-conditioned, dark, and smoky with rotating lights. Drinks and food are served. Place your request to sing a song from a binder of available songs queued and wait for your turn to be called to the stage to performed your selection. It gets crowded, depending on the time of the night, but thins out by midnight.

Pie & Tart Specialists is a chain sweet shop. We visited another location at Metro City Plaza 1, Level 2. This one is on the street level, with heavy foot traffic. It serves to-go orders only, as there is no seating. The tiramisu tart was excellent, and the chocolate mint dessert was nice, light, and not too sweet, but the multi-layered mango cake slice, I didn't care for. Some desserts are great; some are not.

Telephone: +852 2366 1263; Main Telephone: +852 2332 1348

Festival Walk is a middle- to upper-class shopping mall, as it seems there is pricey shopping and eating here with a large foodfest. There's a large ice rink here.

MTR and KCR Kowloon Tong station, MTR exit C.

The Hong Kong Railway Museum is an open-air museum, located where the old Tai Po railway station used to stand. It has the station building, six historical coaches, a narrow-gauge steam engine, and a diesel electric engine, No.51. Historical information is provided. The narrow-gauge service was a poorly designed service; imagine two long benches back to back on a rail car. That's how people had to ride on this service. This narrow-gauge engine was then sold off to the Philippines, where it was used until the 1980s, retired, and then "negotiated" back into Hong Kong.

We tried coming here once before on a previous visit, but they had just closed.

Guided tours are available through Booking form.

Open Wednesday to Monday from 9am to 5pm and closed Tuesday, Christmas, Boxing Day, New Year's Day, and the first three days of Chinese New Year.

KTC Tai Po Market station

Phone: 852 2653 3455, fax: 852 2638 0897
Email: hkrm@lcsd.gov.hk

The Hong Kong Science Museum is largely geared towards kids, though there are some fun and interesting things for adults, such as an early DC-3 plane of Cathay Pacific, first used to launched its Hong Kong airline service, that hangs suspended in the museum. There are the educational films I ended up watching concerning modern food production. Then there's the energy efficiency centre, giving you the ability to interact with the exhibits.

There are around 500 exhibits of mostly interactive science and technology topics, including communication, computer technology, electricity and magnetism, energy and home technology, food science, geography, light, mathematics, meteorology, motion, life science, sound, and transportation.

Phone: 852 2732 3232, fax: 852 2311 2248

Email: enquiry@hk.science.museum

Stanley Market has many small merchants selling their artwork, clothing, and wares. We arrived just before everything was closing. My partner ended up buying a souvenir hat. There was also a nice T-shirt design, but it was available only in white. Since he easily puts coffee stains on shirts, he passed.

Hours: 9am to 6pm

The Temple Street Night Market starts at 2pm, but goes into full swing at sunset. There are plenty of stalls selling things of various sorts: watches, leather ware, clothing, and souvenirs, and there are fortune tellers as well as some young pretty call girls standing behind the stalls on the sidewalk.

E Man Construction has built Metro City Plaza; Phase I, II and III; and the Metropolis in a very large residential/commercial complex. A gigantic dome-shaped skylight at the atrium of Phase II gives a feeling of spaciousness.

HSBC provides a map of the immediate area.

Tian Tan Buddha (aka Giant Buddha) is the largest seated outdoor bronze Buddha in a lotus position, modeled after Tian Tan, the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. There are eight smaller bronze statues at the base representing gods. The scenery and the grounds are very green and tranquil, with a lot of open space and low population density, except for the tourists.

Po Lin Monastery was built in 1920 by three Zen masters and has an attached tea garden. Tian Tan Buddha was built in 1993; the monks of the world were invited to the opening ceremony.

The monks want to charge for admission to the Buddha but can't because of their beliefs, so they get around that by charging HKD 20 for a vegetarian meal. By the time we arrived, it was getting late and the vegetarian meal was closing in less than half an hour. The person at the ticket booth in front of the steps allowed us through without selling us meal tickets. We just had to climb up the 260 steps to the Po Lin Monastery, where the Buddha rested on top. By the time we were done, the last bus service going back had finished for the day, so we queued up for a taxi and waited maybe half an hour for our turn. MTR plans to have service here in the future.

No photos are allowed inside the monastery.

Hours: 10am to 5:45pm, vegetarian meal 11:30am to 5pm.

Ferry from pier no.6 in Central to Mui Wo/Silvermine Bay - take NLB No. 2 to Po Lin.

MTR to Tung Chung station - take NLB No. 23 to Po Lin.

HKG -- Hong Kong International Airport is a hub airport for the rest of China and Southeast Asia, 40km west of Hong Kong, with a train link to the city centre.

Level 8 Mezzanine is not restricted and has a great view of the departures hall.

Level 7 (check-in) offers a variety of eateries: Banana Leaf Asian Food Square, Coffee Club Xpress, the Fook Ming Tong Tea Cabin, and the Wing Wah Cake Shop. Bank of China, Hang Seng Bank, and Hong Kong Bank ATMs are in the check-in hall.

Level 6 (boarding level) has a variety of eating outlets, including Chinese and international cuisines, Stop and Eat in the North Concourse, and Cyberbreak Internet Café, along with shop-til-you-drop syndrome. There are Bank of China ATMs in the east hall. Bank of East Asia ATMs are in the west hall. Bank of America (Asia) ATMs are also in the east hall.

Level 5 (arrivals) has no food or drink outlets -- a missed market here. There are Bank of East Asia ATMs and the meters-and-greeters hall.

Ground transportation includes dedicated express railway, limousines, taxis, buses, and long-distance coaches. Local ferry goes to Chek Lap Kok and Tuen Mun, an area in the New Territories north of the airport, from 6am to 11pm, via bus at passenger terminal to pier.

I remember seeing military personnel with automatic machine guns at the airport on one occasion at the old airport.

The Promenade is great for a quiet, romantic night walk along the waterfront for a wonderful view of the Victoria Harbour from the Star Ferry Pier along Tsim Sha Tsui and Tsim Sha Tsui East.

There were some couples seen sitting and strolling, enjoying one of the few places at night where it's quiet and void of crowds for a few moments of peace and tranquility in an otherwise overcrowded, noisy, and busy environment.

The quiet was broken at night by a vendor hawking to sell drinks off a rolling cart and a late-night ferry's extremely noisy engine offloading some passengers.

MTR is Hong Kong's transportation system incorporating the rail, buses, and airport express system. You can buy a single-fare ride, a one-day pass, or three-day Octopus pass, including a one journey on the airport express.

The Octopus pass or card is a particularly interesting concept, increasing in increments of HK$50 or HK$100. The card can be recharged at stores and can also be used to pay for your shopping with the readers. A microchip is embedded and can be read easily by just holding it up close to the reader- removal from your card holder isn't necessary. They even sell watches with the microchip installed. It makes for a more efficient society moving quickly.

Taking the airport express is one option for an easy no hassle air-conditioned comfort, with service every 12 minutes from around 6am to midnight.

To save money, take a local bus to the nearest MTR station closest to the airport.

The MTR has been evolving and improving itself. The last time I visited Hong Kong, riding the MTR, I didn't enjoy the experience of tightly packed cars or soulless long benches in the cars. The current design makes it more user-friendly in looks, with a friendly system map using led's, indicating station stops and direction. Transfer points light up also on adjacent train lines.

Cathay Pacific Business Class Lounge has got the definitive word on airport lounges to date. Having a business-class seat allowed us the use of their prestigious business-class lounge before our flight. Other ways for lounge access is having an elite status in Cathay's Marco Polo Club, Cargo Clan Elite, or One World Emerald or Sapphire status.

The Hong Kong lounge has shower facilities in a spacious setting. This is definitely first-class, being able to shower and relax. The showerhead gives a generous water flow, and I just lingered in it to enjoy the experience while cleansing my sticky self. It was truly a luxury, included with a business class ticket out of Hong Kong.

Afterwards, there are spacious work stations with PCs, or you can work off your own WiFi-equipped laptop in a large, spacious lounge, with a bartender able to provide a pina colada or small, pre-made sandwiches.

I love being pampered. This is what airline lounges should be measured on - spacious shower and peaceful lounging facilities, and great service, first-rate and truly world-class.

The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) has locations at the airport, Lo Wu, the downtown Central district on Hong Kong Island, the harbour in Tsim Sha Tsui, and Kowloon.

The airport location is open from 7am to 11pm, and other locations are open from 8am to 6pm. All locations except Kowloon offer CyberLink (access to DiscoverHongKong.com), available 24 hours.

Our visit to one of their offices was helpful – we got friendly advice, suggestions, and assistance on where to go, what to do, and how to get there, all complimentary to promote tourism in Hong Kong. You may pick up literature by the pound, but having the information and a useful map in the smallest weight and bulk is best.

With her guidance, we made a day trip going to Lantau Island to see the Giant Buddha, to Tai O Fishing Village for dinner, then headed out to the airport for our next flight out.

We inquired about the use of the Airport Express ride on the Octopus three-day pass -- whether it had to be used within the three days or if it could be used later. She didn't know the answer but quickly called to inquire for us, and it turned out that we could use it later. She was very helpful. I did have some difficulty understanding the accent and low volume.

Visitor hotline: +852 2508 1234, 8am-6pm

Email: info@discoverhongkong.com

After visiting Lantau Island's Giant Buddha, we made our way to Tai O, a fishing village in the outlying islands of Hong Kong. It's a relatively small place with narrow streets, where bicycles are a common mode of transport. It's a busy, hustling place with tourists but still much calmer and more relaxing than Hong Kong.

This is definitely worth a visit for some tranquility and different from Hong Kong. It's definitely changing and getting more commercial, trying to get the tourist dollars, but it is still several steps backwards, in a nice way. Admire the water views and enjoy the quaintness and charm of a small fishing village and of a simpler time and way of life.

We passed by some fishermen selling their catch from their boats to passers-by on land, conducting their transactions with long-handled nets.

The government wants to develop Tai O into a major Hong Kong attraction, which would be a shame, destroying its way of life for the local people. It's already changed from the tourists already coming here. See it before the character changes.

Tai O can be reached by ferry to Mui Wu, or take a bus or MTR to Tung Chung and then board a bus to Tai O. On public holidays there are ferries from Tuen Mun to Tai O.