Hong Kong
PaperPlane | September 8th, 2007
Words Dan Jones
Photo Carby Tuckwell
Crammed on a piece of rock in China’s Pearl River estuary is one of the world’s most unique cities. A mash of queasy colours and screeching neon, twisting overpasses and shopping malls, Hong Kong is part ancient China, part fading British colonialism and part something else entirely. Ever since the tiny outpost was returned to mainland China in 1997, Hong Kong has actively tried to carve itself a fresh, new identity. Still, the clash of opposites is everywhere, from Maoist propaganda and the clouds of steam from street-food sellers boiling pale-looking fish balls, to the choppy-haired fashion kids chattering on mobile phones, impossibly high skyscrapers and apartment blocks and a super-smooth transport network serving nearly 7 million residents. In the past, visitors have travelled to the region with the promise of eye-popping luxury shopping discounts and Marc Jacobs knock-offs, but there’s so much more to Hong Kong than malls, flagship designer stores and the odd pork bun.
It’s a city where modern architecture has replaced almost every historical structure, reflective of a totally progressive and free economy. Apartment blocks appear old and crumbly above pristine hyper-modern boutiques, precariously held together with neon lights, giant billboards and bamboo scaffolds. In summer, as the humidity becomes overwhelming, the damp seems to seep into everything until its broken by heavy rain and electrical storms. If cult movie Blade Runner has become a slightly tired reference point used to describe any crowded, wet Asian city, it somehow completely suits Hong Kong. When the British seized the land in 1841, urban planning was merely to build up high and not look down. The result is a dense mass of concrete, traffic and noise, spiralling up to the foot of Victoria Peak, the mountain that overlooks the city, or deep down to the harbour where fishing boats, cruise liners and junks busy the harbour.
Made up of three main areas, Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories, contemporary Hong Kong is only 25% developed. The rest of the region is green and rocky, sprinkled with fishing villages and 236 small islands, the largest of which is Lantau, home to the Giant Buddha and Disneyland. If Hong Kong island is the moneyed but slightly brash commercial centre, Kowloon is its slightly rougher, tearaway cousin and generally considered the real pumping heart of the city. Still, each region has its secrets like the packed local street markets, word-of-mouth members’ bars, floating restaurants and little sneaker stores hidden inside apartment blocks and back alleys.
At night, the Hong Kong skyline is a jumbled mass of lights, 24 hour internet gaming rooms where school kids sleep on sofas, and a series of secret late-night clubs and drinking holes, world class restaurants and retro-strip bars. With the city’s unstoppable energy and sheer number of residents on the streets at any one time, it’s surprising that Hong Kong is widely regarded as one of the safest and visitor-friendly urban destinations in the world. But this city is full of surprises. Forget what you think you know about Hong Kong.
Sleep
Although accommodation in Hong Kong tends to err on the pricey side, there’s a string of excellent boutique hotels and guesthouse options that will be well within anyone’s budget, and all within a few minutes of a MTR station and an all night noodle house. The most popular (and therefore most expensive) area to stay is Central, but Causeway Bay and Wan Chai are close by and a much cheaper option. Over the water in Kowloon, Tsim Sha Tsui is cheaper still (especially the suspect but popular Nathan Road) and close to the sprawling Mongkok and Fu Yuen street markets. With an excellent and low-price public transport system of trains, trams, buses and ferries, it’s worth staying a little out of the action if you need to save money. In such a condensed city, you’ll never be too far from an underground bar, cool local café or, it seems, an A.P.C. boutique (there are 3 in Hong Kong). Hotel service is generally excellent and rather friendly and it’s good idea to ask the concierge write down your address and destination in Mandarin whenever you go out to explore - just in case you get lost and need to ask directions to the secret sneaker market.
Langham Place
Perched in the centre of Mongkok, Langham Place is a smart, modern hotel deep amongst the daily life of the Kowloon locals. There are 42-inch plasmas in every room, DVD players (with free DVD library) and you can text anywhere in the world for free from your portable room phone, if only to brag about your holiday. The hotel also offers free use of health club, pool and Japanese style hot baths, plus free internet access (and iMacs). There’s also a bubbling chocolate fountain in the buffet restaurant, and when (you’re ready for a little rest etc) the hotel’s Chuan Spa is amongst the best in Hong Kong. We’re all for a little bit of travel luxury, but with a hotel this good, why would you ever leave?
Langham Place, 8 Peking Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon. www.langhamhotels.com
Jia
Causeway Bay’s first boutique accommodation is still a destination for travellers who find chain hotels a little too impersonal. With excellent service, rooms at the Jia remain some of the most modern and comfortable in Hong Kong. High on style, a suite offers a full kitchen, separate bedroom, a marble bathroom, and hidden behind flowing white curtains are secret nooks and daybeds, a huge entertainment system, giant gnome stools and Phillipe Stark lighting. Pastries and juice are laid out in the foyer as you swing out in the morning and wine and crackers for when you stagger in at night. An upscale choice slap bang in the middle of the Causeway Bay shopping craziness, and just a couple of stops on the MTR from both Central and Tsim Sha Tsui.
Jia, 1-5 Irving Street, Causeway Bay. www.jiahongkong.com
InterContinental Hong Kong
In the past few years, posh hotel chain InterContinental has made a sterling effort to refurbish their 1980s-style 5 star luxury persona into something far more modern and relevant. With a contemporary new-look lobby, feng shui inspired I-Spa and fitness centre, and a SPOON restaurant by Alain Ducasse, the InterContinental Hong Kong’s renovations should be completed by the end of 2006, marked with a NOBU restaurant opening onsite late this year. Based around the corner from the Jia in Causeway Bay, if you don’t score a harbour-view room, the LCD tv, ipod docking station and a slightly over-zealous ‘insider concierge’ in all the other rooms should make up for it.
InterContinental Hong Kong, 18 Salisbury Rd Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon. www.ichotelsgroup.com
The Minden
If most mainstream Hong Kong guides are content with only pointing you in the direction of Central for accommodation and nightlife, you know that something smells a little bit off (and it’s not the city’s infamous boiled fish balls). Although Central is Hong Kong’s official centre of ‘cool’, it always pays to go a little further. Try The Minden on Minden Avenue in deepest Kowloon, another luxury-like boutique hotel crammed with dusty antiques and old prints with simple, unique rooms, lounges and a cult courtyard bar called Courtney’s, named after local contemporary artist Pauline Courtney. With just 64 rooms and suites and a popular Japanese restaurant, it’s a tiny, relaxed space on Minden Avenue, Kowloon’s new (and recently pedestrianised) focus for nightlife.
The Minden, 7 Minden Avenue, Kowloon. www.theminden.com
Nathan Road
Guesthouses and hostels along Nathan Road in Tsim Sha Tsui are a budget institution. Perhaps not always the most appealing accommodation, visiting Nathan Road is an experience in itself. Dominated by a series of dark, crumbly tower blocks packed with stores, apartments, hostels, guesthouses and buzzing neon signs, bawdy travellers hunt around the maze-like buildings for the best deals. Owned and run by locals, there are more than a few rough gems on Nathan Road, as long as you’re prepared for the adventure finding them. A living, breathing Wong Kar-Wai movie, you could uncover a real slice of true Hong Kong, dripping washing and squashed dumplings and all. Park a friend downstairs with the bags and get hunting. Start with the clean and friendly Golden Crown Court (66-70 Nathan Road) and work your way down to the chilling Chunking Mansions (36-44 Nathan Road).
Eat/ Drink
You can go all night if you want to. For a city that is impossibly busy during the day, Hong Kong really comes alive after dark. Locals think nothing of eating out, and restaurants and cafes are busy until the early hours. Naturally, there’s a huge emphasis on traditional and modern Cantonese cuisine, from bubbling vats of streetfood (dai pai dongs) that you can brave sitting on stools in the street, to bright-lit noodle bars, dark restaurants or high-concept venues with jaw-dropping views. Drinking and dancing on tables is another story. There are enough velvet ropes to skip over for hours, with strings of secret un-signposted bars and clubs, cute local cafes with liquor licences and a few boozy mega-clubs for good measure. In Central, an odd door-picking policy seems to dominate most late-night venues, but most are friendly, even if you’re forced to wait more than a few minutes in a dank alleyway. Across the water in Kowloon, Tsim Sha Tsui has some great alternative venues in and around Minden Avenue, an infamous retro-style strip bar and, in the city as a whole, some world-class restaurants and cocktail bars deep inside the luxury hotels and apartment blocks that are well worth the trip, if only to use the bathroom.
Dim Sum
Unsurprisingly, Hong Kong is bursting full of Dim Sum (Yum Cha) restaurants. Sprawling, noisy and always busy, it’s a typical local experience that involves a loud voice, confident ordering and, occasionally, gelatinous chicken’s feet. Staff chatter through 2-way radios, just smile sweetly and wait to be seated, or barge past others to hover near tables that look like they might come free. It all kicks off about mid-morning so you’ll have plenty of time to work up your appetite/ work off your hangover. Try ‘Dim Sum’ at 63 Sing Woo Rd, Happy Valley, on Hong Kong Island with over 80 dishes, little wooden booths and a very patient staff, ‘Tao Hung’ on Floor 3, Silvercord Court, 30 Canton Road in Tsim Sha Tsui with a great view of Kowloon Park, or any of the ‘Jasmine’ chain restaurants.
Top Deck at the Jumbo
Perhaps an obvious choice for anyone travelling to Hong Kong (you’ll find the Jumbo mentioned in every guide to the city), but it’s generally an accepted prerequisite of visitors to experience the Jumbo Floating Restaurant. Skip the slightly over-priced but hugely popular dim sum downstairs in favour of the new Top Deck restaurant for a purely relaxing setting on the south side of Hong Kong Island. A total update of the top level of the iconic Jumbo, Top Deck has retained some of the building’s original kitsch and is great for dinner or (very) lazy afternoon drinks on the loungers outside. Access from Aberdeen wharf, a short taxi ride from Admiralty.
Top Deck a the Jumbo, Jumbo Kingdom, Shum Wan Pier Drive, Wong Chuk Hang, Aberdeen.
Hutong
A little bit of luxury never hurt anyone. If you only have one amazing meal in Hong Kong, the Hutong restaurant gets top marks for food, service and its amazing view. A little like watching the Manhattan skyline from Brooklyn, Hong Kong Island viewed from up high in Tsim Sha Tsui is truly eye-popping. With an urban antiquated interior, northern Chinese cuisine and toilets that curiously open out onto windows that overlook the harbour. The equally famous Aqua restaurant and Aqua Spirit bar are also perched just above Hutong, and all provide incredible views of the nightly light show on Hong Kong Island.
Hutong, 28th Floor, One Peking, Tsim Sha Tsui.
Hea Café
Getting to know a new city is all about discovering its best cafes and bars, hanging out in them for hours, eavesdropping on locals and leaving your gum stuck under the table. Out the back of the amazingly well hidden Hea clothing store on Granville St, Tsim Sha Tsui, the Hea Café is a tiny, low-key space serving drinks and simple snacks where customers are crammed intimately into little booths. With crazy light fittings, glass beaded curtains, action figures and toys, the Hea Café is run by a set of cool Hong Kong kids who are happy to tell you what they love about their city and where you should be going out that night.
Hea Cafe, Level 2, 30 Granville St, Tsim Sha Tsui.
Finds
Pickled fish and young banking executives. Only in Hong Kong could the two go smartly together and FINDS in Central is the probable cause. This Nordic cuisine driven restaurant and bar with faux whaleskin seating and xxx is highly popular with the affluent elite. A couple of floors off the street and at the heart of Central’s nightlife scene, check out FINDS’ excellent food, friendly service and sip on a signature cocktail with the moneyed regulars.
Finds, 2F, LKF Tower, Wyndham Street, Lan Kwai Fong.
Lang Kwai Fong
Central’s epicentre for midnight goings on, you could spend a few nights at Lang Kwai Fong and still not get to smile at every stony-faced door picker or bruiser of a bouncer. A series of cute clubs and bars dominate this area, as do the ex-pats and Caucasian Hong Kong residents. Check out FINDS’ posh little sister club Drop, hidden in a dank alleyway off Hollywood Road, or the tiny but cute Yumla bar close by with a slightly less dressy crowd. Propaganda is the infamous (and popular) gay club a few doors away. All bars and clubs occasionally seem to charge a door fee, although this sometimes includes your first drink free - and if you’re managed to find the club, you’re earned it. Just remember, Friday nights sometimes finish a little earlier than you might expect - a huge proportion of Hong Kong residents are back to work early on Saturday morning.
Minden Avenue
Far away from the occasionally overwhelming Expat scene, a local alternative is thriving across the harbour on Minden Avenue, Tsim Sha Tsui. The Minden Hotel’s courtyard bar Courtney’s is a much more relaxed space than any of it’s bawdy neighbours in Central, and Chillax is another downbeat bohemian bar popular with blunt-fringed locals wearing the latest (vintage) sneakers and steamed-up fashion glasses.
Café de Coral
Hong Kong’s chain fast food restaurant Café de Coral churns out dumplings, noodles and barbeque pork dishes from more than 120 outlets all over Hong Kong. Operating since the late sixties, Café de Coral employees, dressed in their trademark yellow air stewardess-like uniforms, serve upwards of 300, 000 loyal and hungry customers on an average day. Be brave and try the breakfast of Fried Rice Noodle Roll with Spicy Pork Cubes, Japanese Style Fish & Beancurd Patties, Pork Loin with Apple and Cabbage Roll with Chicken. Fast food, but such typical local fare that you should at least try a couple of those spicy pork cubes in the name of adventure.
Felix
Some say that Felix is the poshest restaurant on the planet. It’s certainly perched at the top of one of the most exclusive hotels, The Peninsula Hong Kong, but Felix remains an unexpectedly friendly young thing where a balcony, wine bar, champagne bar and tiny perspex raised dancefloor (affectionately known as the ‘crazy box’) glows all the colours of the rainbow. The eclectic set menu is surprisingly reasonable, but you could always just pop in for a cocktail and a look at the local talent. It’s perhaps the boys that are treated best here – the urinals are made of glass so you can relieve yourself onto the glittering lights of Hong Kong below. Nice touch.
Play (1st DPS)
You can swipe your credit card until it’s sore in Hong Kong – it’s the unofficial international centre for shopping enthusiasts and luxury-living obsessives. Despite what every mall-weary traveller will tell you, there is much more to the region than shopping. Still, a little splurge never hurt anyone and, apart from world class glittering malls and flagship stores, there are scores of crowded markets and local boutiques hidden inside dark, blank office blocks; antiques and art on Hollywood Road; fake fashion stalls and iPod Shuffles so cheap you could buy two and wear them as earrings. Then there’s the anti-capitalist experience; taking the tram up to Victoria Peak for amazing city views; visiting the Giant Buddha on Lantau Island; junk trips on the harbour; nature walks along the rocky coastline and a trip to the ex-Portuguese occupied island Macau to play poker and eat custard tarts.
Mongkok
Visitors to Hong Kong sniffed out the legendary Mongkok Markets years ago, but it’s hard to miss them if you’re wandering around Kowloon – thousands of haggling shoppers pushing past each other to snag bargain bras and fake SportsMax luggage. Check out the ladies market, the endless sneaker stores in Fa Yuen Street, the famous flower market and the fowl bird market where angry-looking caged birds will peck at your hands as much as look at you.
Tsim Sha Tsui
A new shopping mall opens in Hong Kong every 3 minutes. Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but apart from the city’s financial core, shopping is new Hong Kong’s main industry. Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon is packed with department stores like Silvercord and Lane Crawford, but wander down Granville Street and you’ll find more interesting stores up off street level. Above a man selling waffles at no. 30 are a group of about nine stores with private buzzers stocking rare, dusty Nikes and street brands like Stussy and Neighbourhood. Our favourite Granville St. stores are Reach and the super-cute Hea store with its café and nail bar.
Causeway Bay
Back on Hong Kong Island, all around Patterson St. are a series of malls and stores like Y-3, Beams (with its huge Asian following), yet another APC boutique, the Adidas Originals store, Juice and a series of streetwear stores up above street level – remember to keep looking up!
Central
Central’s Hollywood Road is packed full of Chinese antiquities and art, the BAPE store and the Man Mo Temple on the corner of Hollywood and Ladder Streets. If you’re not too clued up to Hong Kong art you can visit the Asian Art Archive at 181 Hollywood Road and the Grotto Gallery at Wyndham St that specialises in solely in Hong Kong based artists. Art aside, Central is home to some big tasty brands, the super-cool Joyce department store and the odd ‘wet market’ that you’ll just have to follow your nose to find – it’s the freshest seafood around.
Play (2nd DPS)
Star Ferry
It’s the perfect way to see Hong Island – and, running since 1898, the Star Ferry fleet remains the cheapest way to travel around Hong Kong. With a series of terminals around the region the service is still the preferred method of transport for many Hong Kong locals – about 100,000 a day. Hopping on at Tsim Sha Tsui gets you right into the heart of Central’s skyscrapers and winking neon.
Peak Tram
You quite simply have to take the famous funicular tram from Hong Kong Island up to the top of Victoria Peak for Kodak-moment views of one of the world’s busiest and densest cities. Within a few minutes on the 1888 rail system (with its frighteningly steep 27-degree gradient – bring a change of underwear) you will have escaped Hong Kong shopping craziness and humidity. You can hop on at the Lower Peak Terminal on Garden Road in Central and climb the mountain in 8 minutes. It’s just HK$30 for a return trip and tourist cliché that you just have to be part of.
Fringe Club
Check out the contemporary art, photography and a (very) popular bar with live jazz and small international acts in the Fringe Club, a famous Hong Kong institution near Central’s luxury venue area Lang Kwai Fong. A little more earthy and rough around the edges than its showy neighbours, the Fringe Club is possibly the centre of leftfield creative culture in Hong Kong. Notoriously friendly, dip into the Fringe Club’s Early Bird Breakfast to give you the stamina to explore the BAPE store around the corner.
Hong Kong Disney
Perhaps a taste of things to come, the opening of Disney’s second Asian outpost is an important milestone for Hong Kong. It’s a strong confirmation of the region’s international appeal, but a Disneyland resort does seem a little incongruous in a city that is almost a theme park in itself. Still, there’s something to be said for seeing a real-life Little Mermaid and Mickey Mouse rocking out to a bit of Canto-pop in Disney’s traditional night-time firework parade. If you get bored of “It’s a Small World” you can check out the region’s enormous statue of Buddha nearby on Lantau Island.
Charter a Junk
A Hong Kong icon, junks have been bobbing along in Hong Kong harbour for centuries. Typified by their sails, all Hong Kong junks are now pepped up with diesel engines and GPS trackers. You can hire the Duk Ling junk and, although it is a little pricey, it’s a completely unique way to experience the city. Pack a picnic and knock down the price by inviting a few friends, or otherwise hop on for free on Thursday afternoons when the Hong Kong Tourist Board rent out the Duk Ling and take to the seas.
www.dukling.com.hk
Driving range at the old Kai Tak airport
North of Kowloon lies the old Kai Tak airport which has thankfully closed due its perilous position – surrounded by mountains and the harbour, planes would come in a incredibly low altitude and passengers reported seeing the flicker of television sets in the apartment blocks that somehow lined the runway. Now something of a ghost town, the harbour-facing tip of the main runway is now used as a golf driving range where a lush nine-hole course looks on to Hong Kong Island below.
www.ogcgolfcity.com
The China Club
A private members’ lounge for Hong Kong’s moneyed elite, the China Club was built in the ‘90s by Shanghai Tang’s David Tang, although it looks more like a 1930s dusty art deco gentlemen’s club - Chesterfields, Winston Churchill’s sofa, contemporary Chinese art, Maoist propaganda and the odd cigar. An ocean liner-like bar, library and a dark dining room are all manned by whisper-quiet staff. Painfully exclusive, don’t even think about getting in unless you’re with a member, or are able to flop your big black American Express card out of your Bottega Venetta wallet.
Hong Kong Architecture
Crammed on a tiny, mountainous rock, Hong Kong’s massive urban growth has created some jaw-dropping structures, but has also destroyed most of the city’s historical buildings. Until 1998, height restrictions around Kai Tak airport meant that most new architectural projects in Kowloon were a little squat. These days, Hong Kong can boast some of the world’s tallest skyscrapers and the skyline of Hong Kong Island with the misty Victoria Peak in the background is, quite simply, beautiful. Check out architectural gems like the Bank of China tower (said to cast negative feng shui energy with its sharp angles), the Sir Norman Foster-designed Hong Kong International airport, the Hong Kong Club founded in 1896 and Wa Fu – Hong Kong’s largest and oldest housing estate opened in 1967 to house the city’s inner city squatting families.
Read
Hong Kong by Jan Morris. Historian and travel writer Jan Morris’ book on Hong Kong is almost as interesting as the author herself. After a few decades of journalistic scoops (like announcing that Mount Everest had finally been conquered in 1953), raising five children and slipping in a male-to-female sex change, she was awarded a CBE, became a Welsh bard and stacked up a few honorary doctorates – it’s a wonder she’s had time to travel at all. Jan’s Hong Kong is a completely personal account of her love of the city, but is also packed full its turbulent and unique history.
The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carré. Although a dark spy novel, le Carré’s social commentary on modern Hong Kong (before the end of British rule) is a perfect portrait of this crazed city. Brit spy Jerry Westerby, aka “The Honourable Schoolboy,” is dispatched to a Hong Kong that le Carré describes as a mash of French, British, and American colonial cultures, and a testing ground of patriotic allegiances – and le Carré should know – he was a British spy himself.
Watch
Anything by Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai and Australian cinematographer Chris Doyle. Movies of note are In the Mood for Love, Chungking Express, Fallen Angels and Happy Together (although only a fraction of this is made in Hong Kong). Focussing on the fractured lives of Hong Kong residents and super-styled swoopy-fringed outsiders, melancholy stories of love and violence are shot in Doyle’s lauded freehand and eye-poppingly beautiful style. Longtime collaborators Wong Kar-Wai and Chris Doyle are about to shoot their first big budget mainstream English-language remake The Lady of Shanghai with Nicole Kidman.
Listen
Listen? It’s hard not to. Edison Chen is Hong Kong’s hip hop and Canto pop mega-star, idolised by millions who pump out Ed’s most popular hits from every car window and apartment block in Hong Kong. Born in Vancouver, Edison Chen speaks English, Cantonese and Mandarin and has recently become involved in fashion and cinema (he’s just wrapped The Grudge 2 with Sarah Michelle Geller). Check out the single Waste of Breath which tells the story of Edison’s assault incident in 2004 when two teenagers apparently mocked him by breakdancing in front of him as he was leaving a Hong Kong hair salon. The brief punch up that followed only added to Edison’s fame, and it just might have gone to his head? His online blog states that “If I died now my love would still haunt you.” Bless. www.blog.honeyee.com/edison/
Diary
The Hong Kong International Film Festival
March 27 – April 11, 2007
Asia’s most important film festival for international filmmakers, the HKIFF is held in venues across the city every year. Still, try and check out as much homegrown Hong Kong cinema as you can – fast-paced gangster flicks and martial arts masterpieces. The 31st HKIFF will run from March 27 to April 11, 2007, although there are various smaller festivals throughout the year.
Dragon Boat Festival
June 19, 2007
Known locally as the Tuen Ng festival, the famously colourful Dragon boats charge through the harbour to commemorate the death of national hero Qu Yuan who drowned himself 2000 years ago in political protest in the Mi Lo River. As townspeople attempted to rescue him, they beat drums to scare fish away and threw dumplings into the sea to keep the fish from eating Qu Yuan’s body. These days, 10 metre long ornately-carved boats race through the harbour, urged on by beating drums and rice-and-meat dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves.
Chinese New Year
February 18, 2007
Squeal little piggy! In February 07, the Year of the Pig will be ushered in with a bang. Check out the New Year Night Parade that attracts upwards of 100,000 boozy spectators gasping at the fireworks display (and the price of accommodation which tends to soar around this peak time). A two-day international soccer tournament follows along with the ‘Symphony of Lights’ light exhibit where 30 Hong Kong Island skyscrapers burst into light (making it the largest permanent light show in the world).
Hong Kong Arts Festival
February 1 – March 31, 2007.
Coinciding with the film festival, the Hong Kong Arts Festival celebrates its 35th year in 2007. Pulling together music, theatre, art and performance, with lectures and workshops on most local artforms, you can learn about Asian singer songwriters, Canto-Pop star Pong Nan or gender switching in Cantonese Opera.
