Hong Kong Travel Diary

Here is my Hong Kong Travel Diary!  To be entirely honest, this trip to Hong Kong wasn’t necessarily planned.  I had scheduled a trip to in San Francisco and when it came time to book my flights, I noticed that there was the option of travelling via Hong Kong with Cathay Pacific.  By the way, I always use Expedia to book my flights.  When I saw that, I immediately knew that I needed to seize the opportunity to explore the city and so I added a few extra days to my travel itinerary in order to roam around Kowloon and Hong Kong Island.  I’ve never heard anyone make a single negative remark about Hong Kong and I now know why.  It’s a dazzling, first world state.  Everything in Hong Kong is so organised and efficient.  It is a city that is absolutely spectacular by night.  Most surprisingly to me, however, were the incredible beaches and the dense vegetation in certain areas.  I’d never heard people remark about that aspect of Hong Kong so I was really blown away by its natural beauty.

We booked a room at the Dorsett Wanchai hotel on Hong Kong Island and it was a really great hotel.  If you’d like to see more of our room, you can take a look at my Hong Kong Travel Diary vlog.  From our hotel, we were walking distance from Time Square which is incredible by night.  There are so many wonderful high-end stores that will have anyone keen on fashion absolutely drooling.  Speaking of salivating, there are also so many fantastic restaurants in this district too.  

During our time in Hong Kong we visited the Tian Tan Buddha which is an experience all on its own.  To get to the Buddha you need to take a cable car ride up the mountain (unless you are really brave and would prefer to hike up that incline).  The cable car ride provides you with the most wonderful aerial view of the ocean, the mountains and the buildings on the outer edge of Hong Kong and it is really quite humbling.  At the top of the hill, there is a wonderful traditional tea house and a whole bunch of other restaurants and tourism stores.  From there you can walk on through this “village” and the warrior statues lining the walkway, toward the monastery and the Buddha itself.  It really is so beautiful and peaceful up there.  Don’t be surprised if you find an odd cow roaming around up there.

While we were in Hong Kong we were extremely excited to try the local food.  The street food was completely foreign to us but luckily we had a tour guide that was able to explain it to us.  The saucy bowl you can see above is a dish called “lobster rolls”  which is lobster pieces rolled into a ball, boiled and served in a spicy sauce.  It is delicious!  The next picture of a brown, ball-shaped pastry is actually the Hong Kong version of a waffle.  This is extremely popular with the locals.  You’ll often see everyone from businessmen in suits to young school girls stopping to buy these waffles.  They’re usually available in either vanilla or chocolate flavour.  The one above is the chocolate version.

Once you arrive in Hong Kong, you will hear people talk about the light show that happens every night around 8pm.  The best place to view the light show is from the Railway Clock Tower on Kowloon.  If I have to be completely honest, the light show itself is a real let down.  The skyline of Hong Kong Island by night, however, is well worth venturing out to the light show.  The lights from the buildings shine over the water and it is quite spectacular.

As I mentioned, the beaches in Hong Kong are quite breath-taking.  I haven’t shared any pictures from them in this Hong Kong Travel Diary because I think I’ll save them for a post all on their own.  All in all, Hong Kong was one of the most amazing places I’ve ever travelled to and I would go back without any hesitation the moment an opportunity presented itself.  It’s such a vibrant place with so much to do.  I really hope you enjoyed this travel diary!  Let me know if you’ve ever been to Hong Kong in the comment section below.

If you haven’t already seen my post from Stanley Market, you can find that here.