After Xi’an we made our way back to Hong Kong via Guangzhou and the Shenzhen border crossing for a reprise to our October adventure. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I really like Hong Kong. It is unlike any other city in the world, and I love it. This trip we saw some of what we saw before (read about my adventures on the Peak Tram and to the Tian Tan Buddha) only this time with the new China Horizons group, but also experienced other adventures that Hong Kong has to offer.
The Temple
Of course we spent time at the LDS Temple in Hong Kong and had a wonderful time there. It is so wonderful to have a temple at least this near that I’ve been able to visit it a couple of times while in China.
Ping Shan Heritage Trail
One of our first stops was in the area called the New Territories that we read about in Lonely Planet. It is the Ping Shan Heritage Trail taking visitors to a series of sites that were significant to the earliest settling of the Hong Kong area. The sites are all owned by the Tang family and are still used by the descendants of this family.
Along the trail is an old brick pagoda, one of the only remaining walled villages in Hong Kong and some ancestral halls and buildings. My favorite building is the library because of the unique architectural features and artistic elements. This walk also takes the visitor through a real neighborhood of Hong Kong that is very different from the well-known Hong Kong Island and Kowloon areas. If you’re in HK for a while and have time this is worth a couple of hours to explore.
Mong Kok
I don’t know how last time I was in HK I missed one of the most energetic places in the city, Mong Kok. It is a neighborhood with so many restaurants and shops that you could spend weeks and not visit all of them. Down one street is a big souvenir market and all throughout the area are electronics stores with inexpensive prices and just about anything else you could imagine.
We were introduced to the area by a new friend who tried to take us to a cheap Michelin-rated dim sum place but there was a two-hour wait and we were starving so we found something else, some pretty good western food that we can’t find in Hefei. She also introduced us to some great waffles that have peanut butter and honey folded inside. They were delectable!
At night this place turns into mostly pedestrian streets with performers and others coming out in droves to take advantage of the hordes going to eat and shop. Overhead are hundreds of signs, many neon, creating awesome layers of advertising and giving a great atmosphere to everything going on around. I went back a few more times while there finding some good Chinese food and a great Turkish restaurant.
