Hong Kong, NYC on the South China Sea

Most Impressive Sights
If you do nothing else in Hong Kong, walk along the promenade along the harbor between the Star Ferry Terminal and the Intercontinental Hong Kong at dusk for a view of the lights from the skyscraper canyons on Hong Kong Island against a dimly silhouetted Victoria Peak. No other cityscape can rival it except -- just possibly -- the view of Manhattan from the Jersey Shore.

The Street Markets
From a Chinese perspective, the many street markets of Hong Kong are a joy, whether the Night Market in Ya Mau Pai, the Bird Market in Mongkok, or the many side streets that lead uphill from the sea on Hong Kong Island. These will all live in your memory.

The Food
Hong Kong is awash with superb goodies. The little dai pai dongs or food stalls offer intriguing tidbits, whether you recognize the ingredients or not. Fortunately, due to strict health regulations, these are almost universally safe, so nibble to your hearts' content!

The Lights
If you're in Hong Kong in January, lights from Christmas and others in preparation for Chinese New Year are dazzling. Tsim Sha Tsui is stunning at this time. This year the electric utility put on a spectacular show at a fountain with lasers and even fire.

A Historical Note
Hong Kong was still British when I was last there in 1985. Now, in 2002, five years after the hand-over, Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region within the People’s Republic of China. Everyone thought, prior to 1997, that terrible things would probably happen and that Hong Kong would cease to be the vibrant, money-driven economic "Tiger" it had been under the Brits. Nothing could have been further from the truth. If anything, the place seems more dynamic than ever. It also seems equally as free as it ever was as well, however ironic that may seem.

Hong Kong operates largely as if it were a completely independent entity from the PRC. Visa regulations are different; the currency is different; the government is different. Everything is different. Hong Kong, for the next 45 years at least when the term of the SAR runs out, remains just like it always was – only more so!

Quick Tips:

Airport Transport
Although there are buses and taxis that will get you into town from the brand-spanking-new airport on Chek Lap Kok, the train is by far the most convenient and certainly the fastest way into town. The station is connected to the terminal building, so all you need to do is walk straight ahead after coming through customs. Fares are reasonable and it's only 23 minutes all the way to Central Station on Hong Kong Island, 19 minutes if you're heading for Kowloon. Get yourself a taxi from those points to continue on to your hotel.

The Airbuses
The air buses, although they will take you directly to your hotel, take forever to get into the city. It took us 1 1/2 hours in freezing air-conditioning to get from the airport to our hotel in North Point on Hong Kong Island. Had we used the train and taxi, we would have been there in about 40 minutes! The difference is staggering.

The Ferries
Ferries going to outlying islands and between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island make for delightful -- and cheap -- cruises, whether you're really into sightseeing or not.

Best Way To Get Around:

Public Transport
If you're in Hong Kong for at least four days or so, get yourself an Octopus Card, Hong Kong's brilliant admission to its excellent public transport system. You simply place this little smart card on the sensor of the turnstile and in you go. It works on the subway(underground), most buses, the suburban railway, and some of the ferries. There is also a special 3-day pass for HK which also gives you a round-trip on the Airport Express train as well.

Taxis
Although not quite so cheap as Singapore's, taxis are still very good value in Hong Kong. You pay HK at flag-fall, but that will get you 1.5kms, which is excellent value!

Walking
Most tourist sights in Kowloon are relatively close together, so walking is a great way to see them. The only drawback is the noise from the double-decker buses on the streets. That said, maps are generally good, and Hong Kongers are amazingly helpful, though you will not find just anyone speaks English. It's best to carry a bit of paper with your destination written on it in Chinese, which your hotel desk clerk will happily provide.

Driving
Forget it!

The Ibis is a very modern, very clean, but rather modest 3-star hostelry that offers excellent service and spotless bathrooms -- but direct Internet connection, hair dryer, and bath. The problem was that the room, which was meant to be a double, was too small for two people to move past one another alongside the bed. Indeed, the only way we could create any extra space for ourselves was to push the bed back against the wall, which at least allowed us to turn the chair around.

As for the mattress, it was orthopedic "hard" and barely larger than a North American single -- yet this was supposed to be a double! Another caveat: there are both standard and deluxe rooms; however, you don''t get a larger room for the extra money, just a splendid view over the harbor towards Tsim Sha Tsui.

Where service was concerned, though, the staff were superb: they bent over backwards to see that we were absolutely satisfied. Service was fast, the restaurant, though spartan, served excellent food. Even the buffet breakfast, which was included in the rate, was good, unlike some that have been foisted off on us in other hotels. A further selling point is that guests are given access to two computers in the small business center behind the front desk. For a nominal fee, you can check your e-mail or surf the ''Net.

To give you some idea of how concerned they were about keeping us happy, shortly after getting to our room at about 11pm, we discovered that the telephone didn''t work. I went down to the desk, told them about it, and was told that they would send someone up. I thanked them, figuring the guy wouldn''t appear until the next morning. Not a bit of it! Within 5 minutes of my arrival back in the room, there was a discrete knock and all was resolved in minutes. You simply can''t fault that!

As for the location, it is a little farther along the northern shore of Hong Kong Island that one might like and does not appear on the free maps that most people use. That said, you are only five and six MTR stops (10 - 12 minutes) away from all the action in Admiralty and Central respectively. Since the entrance to the Java Road metro stop is a mere 30 meters from the door to the hotel, getting to and from the place is effortless.

Were it not for the size of the rooms, I would give it a "highly recommend." As it is, it''s fine for one person, but for a couple with even minimal carry-on luggage such as ourselves, the rooms are just too small for more than two or three nights.

East Asian Accommodation Note:
One of the peculiarities of East and Southeast Asia is that organizations such as the Salvation Army, Caritas (Red Cross), and the YM(W)CA run hotels that are perfectly respectable places to stay. I wouldn''t think of staying in any of them in North America, for example, because I''d figure they were essentially flophouses meant for the down-and-out. In Asia nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, they often offer accommodation that is the best value for money anywhere in town. This is certainly true of Hong Kong.

The Salvation Army''s Booth Lodge is perhaps the best "deal" to be found in all of Hong Kong. Doubles are spacious -- and space comes at a premium here -- clean, and well equipped. We had a fridge, satellite TV (dismal channel choices, though), IDD telephone, and a bath. There was even a sofa, an armchair, and a coffee table, which made the room seem quite luxurious. Compared with our first hotel, which is covered on another page in this journal, it felt like a palace.

Breakfast
Included in the price (HK$414 including taxes) was a breakfast buffet. In some senses, this was the only "down side" to the stay because breakfast was almost unchanging: we could choose from processed ham slices, wieners, scrambled (or on some days fried) eggs, toast (white and wholewheat), noodles, congee, and an awful looking soya bean soup. Fresh orange juice, coffee, and tea were also available. This menu was unchanging throughout our 11 day stay, and the eggs were always too greasy.

Services Available
33 rooms, restaurant/coffee shop, valet service, dry cleaning, laundry, baby sitter avail., & tour desk/travel agency

Getting There
If you''re coming from the airport, take the AER Train to Kowloon Station and a cab from there. The cab will be about HK$20 from the station. Otherwise, take the MTR to Yau Ma Tai and leave via Exit D. On exiting to the street, turn left onto Nathan Road, walk to the second corner, turn left and its at the top of the road on the left-hand side of Wing Sing Lane.

The Treasure is but one of many, many excellent restaurants scattered along Nathan Road in Kowloon. This particular one is larger than most with dining rooms on at least three floors of a high-rise. If you come for dinner, I'd make a reservation; the afternoon dim sum spread doesn't cause those problems.

We had afternoon dim sum nibblies on numerous occasions during our last trip to Hong Kong. There is a selection of over 50 items, which are wheeled by your table on carts. You call over a waitress and the cart, she opens the little bamboo steamer baskets, and you pick whatever you want.

They all look wonderful; however, anyone with allergies to seafood should be cautious because many of the items contain at least a little bit of fish or shellfish.

Anyway, after you have made your choices, they leave the steamers on the table, and mark a bill for whatever you've decided to have.

Two cautionary notes:
1) Like most Hong Kong restaurants, the Treasure charges a lot of money for drinks. A Coke, for example, will cost you HK$25, which is almost US$ 4.00! Everything else is reasonable. A pot of Chinese tea, however, is usually included.

2) There is very, very little English spoken here. Even with the help of the English menu, you may have problems if you want any detailed information about just what you're getting. That said, the maitre d' does manage reasonably well with the language, so all hope is not lost.

The Tong Tai is a great little semi-sidewalk restaurant in the Temple Street Night Market that specializes in seafood. They serve just about anything that you'll find in the waters of Hong Kong, many things most Westerners have never seen before let alone considered eating! You walk by the tables set up with the ingredients and you pick whatever you want from bizarre crustaceans to clams, whelks, and other odd snail-like things. Or maybe you'd prefer a sea cucumber? Or edible jellyfish? Whatever...

I should add here that most of the little guys you'll soon be downing are still very much alive when you pick 'em. Some are so lively, in fact, that they crawl right off the plates in front of you. I can assure you that they are quite dead by the time you get them, however! Incidentally, they keep the crabs' claws tied, so no one is in any danger of being pinched!

Eating in a place like this is a great experience, if nothing else than for the cultural experience. The food must be good because you see some very sophisticated-looking people tucking into great mounds of seafood here.

This old Seattle company has outlets scattered throughout Hong Kong's glitzier districts and shopping malls, so you're never much more than ten minutes away from a latte. My wife and I were in two or three during our stay and I have to say that we were not that impressed with the service nor with the staff, who tended to be rather ill-informed, a trifle surly, and barely capable of intelligible English.

For most visitors, I suppose, the main point to a stop at a Pacific Coffee Company outlet is the free web-surfing they offer. All the ones I saw had a few lap-top computers - never more than six - available for client use. Officially, you're only allowed 15 minutes' worth of free 'Net time, but in practice, if there's are only a few customers -- which isn't often, actually -- you can surf along to your heart's content. At the very least, you can check your e-mail.

A note about Hong Kong Internet cafes:
Computer penetration in Hong Kong is very, very high, probably the highest in Asia. The result is that the Internet cafe culture hasn't really caught on here. In Singapore or Thailand you can't walk five minutes in any direction without finding a public connection. In Hong Kong, that's rather more difficult. That said, the public connections we did find were mostly free, whereas you have to pay elsewhere in the region.

Two terminally-cute, roly-poly, fuzzy-wuzzy Giant Pandas, Gia-Gia and An-An by name, are arguably the premier drawing cards for Ocean Park, Hong Kong's eclectic answer to Disney World. Housed in a state-of-the-art enclosure that mimics as many features of real panda habitats as it can, these charmers seem as contented as any animal in captivity could possibly be.

The afternoon my wife and I were there, only one of the pandas -- whether Gia-Gia or An-An, we still don't know -- was being sociable. Keeping its distance from the audience below (or were we its audience??), s/he sort of walked/rolled from one place to another, at times rolling in the grass, snaring tidbits of bamboo, or poking a nose curiously into nooks and crannies, which had surely ceased to be mysteries long ago. We found ourselves a trifle mesmerized by the whole experience, for we had better views -- with no wire mesh or bars interfering -- than we had ever had when we had seen pandas before in zoos in Berlin and London.

The enclosure itself is also quite unusual. You walk down a long ramp, rather as you would into a theater, passing first a CCTV-screen showing any activity inside the pandas' den. Ahead lies a huge room with a towering ceiling, and you can see people standing along three levels of guardrails while they gaze off to the left, perpendicular to your angle of approach. Once you can see past the wall on your left, you discover a low-level wall, a "moat" below, and a grassy, 30-degree upward slope with strategically-placed rocks -- some faux, some not -- and clumps of vegetation. Looking around, you'll eventually spot one or -- if you're lucky -- both of the pandas, munching, as often as not, on great armfuls of cut bamboo, their diet of choice.

The steeply sloped enclosure is thorougly appropriate, since the few remaining giant pandas live in a remote, mountainous region of southern China at quite a high altitude. They spend their days rummaging through bamboo forests, clambering over rocks, and generally keeping out of the way of humans. In order to re-create this kind of environment, the curators at Ocean Park have gone so far as to install misting equipment in order to keep the humidity up and the air cool.

If you're fascinated by pandas -- or if you've never seen one before "up close and personal" -- then this exhibit alone is worth the fairly steep admission to Ocean Park.

The Butterfly House

The long, low, glass-encased butterfly enclosure at Ocean Park gave me the feeling that I was walking inside a caterpillar, which, I supose, was the archtect's intention. Once inside, you follow a tiled walkway that takes you past dozens of tropical flowers, plants, and trees, many of them orchids, which butterflies have an apparent affinity for.

The butterflies themselves are mostly varieties that are indigenous to Hong Kong and nearby Guandong Province of Mainland China. Ranging in size from just a few centimeters across to giant varieties whose wingspans can be as much as 15 or 20 cm, they are a wonderfully colorful and exotic exhibit. However dramatic their colorations may be, though, many are still remarkably difficult to see within all the foliage, so this is not a place you can zip through and still manage to glimpse everything available for you to see. Quite senibly, the designers thought to install strategically-placed little feeding stations that can all be seen from the walkway. Even if you can't locate any of the disarmingly beautiful creatures in the leaves, if you hang about long enough, you'll see most of them stop by for a snack if nothing else.

A little more than half-way through the enclosure, you come across an excellent graphic and textual display that explains what you are seeing together with a bit of background of the many species of lepitoptera and other insects that can be found in the region.

Asian Night Markets: An Introductory Note
Night markets are a long-standing and utterly delightful tradition in East and Southeast Asia that must date back centuries. Every city of any size from Indonesia to HongKong and beyond has at least one. Although some have begun to open up in the late afternoon - due largely I suspect to pure avarice and greed - they never really kick off until after dark when most people are off work, need to shop, and desperately want to get out of their almost universally cramped apartment blocks. The night market is cheap - or even free if you don't buy anything - and offers a great opportunity to see and be seen. Evening strolls through the local night market are in many senses the Far Eastern equivalent to the traditional paseo of Spain. For the visitor, they're one of the best places to take in the real flavor of the city. In some you will find sections that are mostly set up to cater to foreigners - the night markets of Chiang Mai or Phuket (Thailand) spring to mind - but elsewhere, as in Hong Kong, they do indeed serve the local population.

Temple Street Night Market
Running between Kansu Street and Jordan Road, Temple Street and the adjacent streets to either side comprise Hong Kong's best-known night market. Street stalls begin to open up around 4:00 pm but it doesn't really start hopping until after sunset.

Items for sale:
If you actually are interested in buying something here, you'll find lots of clothing - mostly men's items - tee-shirts, Oriental bric-a-brac, herbal remedies, cheap electronic goods and watches, fake flowers, sex toys, or you-name-it. It's not really the place to find quality goods, though there are some fascinating things available from some of the Tibetan stalls in the area. I saw some very nicely made silver prayer wheels, for example, though I didn't find any of the extraordinary "singing bowls" that are often available in the streets of Kathmandu or Dharamsala.

The Feel of the Place
Whether you buy or not, when you're wandering down the center of Temple Street, there is none of the geographical ambivalence you feel on Hong Kong Island when you're strolling through the glass and steel high-rise canyons that feel so much like Manhatten or Frankfurt. Here in Temple Street, one is decidedly in East Asia, from the cackling cacophony of Cantonese that can be nearly painful to the Western ear to the dried-up oddities sold in the herbalists' shops whose provenance and purpose will befuddle you for days, or from hawkers proffering fake Rolexes to Tibetans selling badly executed thankas. It's raw, it's mesmerizing, it's exotic, and it's entertainment that's easily as enjoyable as anything else Hong Kong has to offer at often staggeringly high prices. Not to spend at least one evening here during your stay in Hong Kong would be a crying shame.

Navigating Ocean Park

Due to the exigencies of Hong Kong geography, Ocean Park was built over a headland and extends down into a lowland valley on Hong Kong Island's south shore adjacent to the old settlement of Aberdeen. There are at least four distinctive levels in the park which had to be connected together. But how? Ocean Park's planners solved it with typical HK panache: use technology in any way possible.

There are two principal sections of the park: The Lowlands, where such exhibits as the Panda Enclosure and the Children's Park are located. The other section is some 200 meters higher up and drapes itself down the other side of the headland. The question, of course, is how to move hundreds of visitors from one section to another as efficently -- and comfortably -- as possible. This is no easy task given the distances and the climate, for Hong Kong can be very warm and humid.

The Escalators
We took a bus from Central to the Tai Shue Wan entrance to the park which deposited us in front of the Middle Kingdom, a mock up of a 16th Century Chinese city. Once inside the actual entrance to the park, we checked out the Bird Park, but decided it was not as extensive as Jurong Bird Park in Singapore, so we opted to proceed on to the section of the park on the Headland. On examination of a park map, we found a listing for the escalators, which turned out to be a bit of an attraction in themselves. A series of three, totalling a staggering 225 meters, carried us up at least 150 meters above the Middle Kingdom and past a spectacularly-set roller coaster.

The Cable Car
Getting from the Headland attractions and on down into the Lowland sections would not be a simple task because of the distance and the altitude differences. The answer to the problem was to build a 1.5 km cable car system. After spending some time in the marine exhibits of the Headland, we took this option. The trip turns out to be one of the highlights to any visit to the park. You find yourself skimming along the side of a forest cliff, which is not all that far off the vertical, with views over the bay, some of Hong Kong's outer islands, and all the passing shipping, of which there is plenty. After the cliff experience, you come up over the top and then very swiftly -- and steeply -- plunge down to the station on the other side. It's a very beautiful and exhilarating 8 or 10 minutes. There's an added bonus, too: the fare is included in the general admission fee to the park.

The Bird Garden offers a delightful respite from the noise and hubub that rule the streets of Kowloon. For decades bird lovers have congregated here in Yuen Po Street to air their birds, let them sing, and talk about their feathered pets. It was only natural that commercial interests should be aroused, so a market sprang up alongside. Stalls selling birds, bird food, cages, and every conceivable item related to the care and feeding of birds began to appear.

Walking through the Bird Garden is an unforgettable experience. Young and old are here, people of every shape and description, all with an overwhelming interest in birds. Even if you don't like the little beasties, people watching is enough to bring you here -- as well as the amazing variety of beautifully constructed cages, which can be as basic as something made out of bamboo to veritable birdie palaces that cost a small fortune.

Finding it is no problem. Take an MTR train to the Prince Edward stop, follow the signs for Prince Edward Road West, exit to the left, and go straight ahead until just before the train overpass, at which point you turn left. Walk up the steps and you're there!

This is one Hong Kong experience that really isn't to be missed!

One of the more unusual street markets is the one on a short stretch of Mong Kok's Tung Choi Street where dozens of tropical fish shops and stalls are concentrated. I've seen street markets devoted to a good many common and not-so-common items in my time, but this was a first. The Chinese, of course, have been fascinated with decorative and exotic fish for centuries, so I suppose it's no surprise that they would come up with a market like this. It is, nevertheless, unique in my experience.

Most shops are pretty small; indeed, some are mere stalls. Some shops have large numbers of aquariums, but most simply put their fish in little plastic bags, and hang them on pegboard for display purposes. Here you'll find anything from salt water species such as clownfish and surgeonfish to the commonest, garden-variety goldfish.

Interestingly, perhaps the most interesting varieties you'll find for sale are the gold fish. These merchants offer a fantastic variety, from mottled, multicolored hybrids with large, feathery fins to cute little white ones with fleshy orange topknots that someone less charitable than myself might think are odd malignancies: You've heard of elephant man, well, there go elephant fish...

I suppose, all things considered, this is not an absolute "must" on your Hong Kong itinerary; however, the market is certainly worth a half-hour or so as you walk around through this section of Kowloon that has a larger concentration of street markets than just about any other part of the SAR.

Hong Kong's Flower Market, which serves both wholesale and retail customers, stretches the equivalent of two or three blocks along one side of a street of the same name between Sai Yee and Yuen Po Streets not far from the Prince Edward Street station of the MTR. (Follow the same directions I've given for a visit to the adjacent Yuen Po Bird Garden on another page.) The little street is ablaze with color and crowded with customers much of the time.

The variety of flowers available is mind-boggling and range from the usual roses, babies' breath, and chrysanthemums to the bizarre, e.g., cabbage flowers, China fruit, and Venus Flytraps. There are cacti from the American Southwest, Hawaiian orchids, and Dutch tulips. You'll also find dozens of varieties you've probably never even seen before. Clearly, walking through the market is a delight. You'll find little old ladies arguing over the price of a single rose, elegantly-clad Yuppies buying armloads of orchids, and retailers taking possession of whole truckloads of blossoms.

Something we had never seen on offer anywhere before were flowers that had been "doctored." One merchant was selling blue roses, almost certainly white roses that had been placed in pots of blue dye. Another trick Hong Kong florists use is to apply glitter to the edges of flower petals. This seemed to be a popular treatment for cabbage blossoms for some odd reason. One extraordinary rose we came across was a deep, deep, velvety red with flecks of yellow, rather like the blooms had been splattered by a particularly careless housepainter.

Obviously, for photographers, the Flower Market is a real treat. People are intent enough on their own flower shopping that they really don't notice you shooting. Be aware of a problem, however: the stalls and small shops are often lit with fluorescent or sodium vapor lamps, which is mixed with daylight streaming in from outside, producing rather perplexing lighting problems. The best attack is probably bounced flash inside shops, though I managed -- just -- with the built-in flash unit on my little digital.

Most mass transit systems are not something one generally waxes enthusiastic about, as I’m sure you’ll agree. Indeed, more often than not, they’re something that frequently provokes dismay, derision, and disgust. Hong Kong’s MTR network, however, is an exception to this rule. It is nothing short of brilliant. Although it would be nice to see a few more metro lines added to the system – and the buses could certainly stand to be less heavily air-conditioned – the fact remains that it is unquestionably the easiest and most transparent system to use that I have ever encountered anywhere in the world. It is just about idiot-proof, which is saying something.

Tickets
As is often the case nowadays, you buy your ticket from an automat; indeed, you cannot even buy a single ticket from a person. Often instructions are difficult to puzzle out. Not in Hong Kong. You walk up to the machine, look at the interactive map, put your finger on your destination, the machine displays the fare, you insert the fare, and the machine prints the ticket and dispenses your change if you have anything coming.

Boarding
You take your ticket to the turnstile, insert it in a slot, the gate opens, and you pick up your ticket again on the other side. After following the signs to the platform, you’ll find not only destination signs for each train, but the name of the next stop as well, not forgetting signs telling you when the next train is going to arrive. And if you look along the edge of the platform, you will even see markings indicating where you should stand so that you're properly positioned in front of the doors when the train arrives! I had not seen this little nicety since using the Japanese Shinkansen ("bullet trains").

On board
Once on board, you’ll note an electronic map above each door. The stations before the one you have boarded are dark; succeeding stations are lit in red. As you progress, the next stop’s light blinks. On opening the doors, the stop stops blinking – and so on. When you come to a station where you can change to a different line, the lights of all the stations on the line then blink, showing you that you may transfer to a train going to any of those destinations.

Exiting the train and station
Once you are off, follow the signs up to the concourse, go to an exit turnstile, insert your ticket in the slot, the gate opens, and your ticket is retained. Now follow the exit signs, which list major buildings and streets that are accessible from each one. Exits are named: A, B, C, etc.

Octopus Cards
If you’re there for four days or more, buy an Octopus card. With it, you merely place your wallet or purse – or whatever you have the card stored in – on the pad atop the turnstile, the gate opens, and in you go! You’ll pay a HK$50 deposit, and you must pay a minimum of HK$100 in fares. The turnstile will tell you how much money you have left on the card as you pass through the exit. If you leave the country before you have used it all up, you get every HK cent back!

Until the appearance of two cross-harbor tunnels between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island, the Star Ferry service, which commenced in 1888, was the sole connection between these two part sections of Hong Kong. The only lengthy interruption in service took place during WWII during the Japanese Occupation. Otherwise, the ships have been moving millions across the channel quickly and safely for all these many years.

The ferries are still the most economical, and in some ways, the most convenient way for residents and tourists to cross the harbor. Fares are amazingly low, a mere HK$1.70 for the 8 minute trip between Tsim Sha Tsui and Central. If it's hot and humid, however, it's best to opt for the HK$2.30 ticket, which puts you upstairs in an air-conditioned cabin. You still don't miss the views, though, because there are wrap-around windows.

For the visitor, the trip is not only practical; it's also one of the most beautiful boat trips anywhere, especially if you make it at night when the lights of Hong Kong Island are ablaze. The reflections on the water, the illuminated skyscrapers, the twinkling lights up in Mid-Levels and Victoria Peak make for a spectacular experience.

Even if you do prefer the speed of the MRT (underground/subway), at least one trip is necessary for every visitor because the Star Ferries are an integral and essential Hong Kong experience, which is not to be missed.