Museum sights in Hong Kong
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Hong Kong Maritime Museum
This small but interesting museum, occupying the ground floor of Murray House, consists of ancient and modern galleries charting the shipping history of Hong Kong. It’s well worth a visit if you’ve already come to see Murray House. The modern gallery includes some fun interactive displays where you can test your skills at Morse code or even pilot a tanker through Hong Kong waters.
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Hong Kong Heritage Museum
Located southwest of Sha Tin town centre, this worthwhile museum is housed in a three-storey, purpose-built structure that is reminiscent of an ancestral hall. It has both rich permanent collections and innovative temporary exhibits in a dozen galleries. The ground floor contains a book and gift shop, the wonderful Children’s Discovery Gallery, with eight learning and play zones (including ‘Life in a Village’, ‘Undersea Garden’ and ‘Mai Po Marsh’) for kids aged four to 10, a Hong Kong Toy Story hands-on area for tots and an Orientation Theatre, with a 12-minute introductory video in English on the hour. There’s also a lovely teahouse. Along with five thema…
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Hong Kong Museum of History
For a whistle-stop overview of the territory’s archaeology, natural history, ethnography and local history, this museum is well worth a visit, not only to learn more about the subject but also to understand how Hong Kong presents its history to itself and the world. ‘The Hong Kong Story’ takes visitors on a fascinating walk through the territory’s past via eight galleries, starting with the natural environment and prehistoric Hong Kong – about 6000 years ago, give or take a lunar year – and ending with the territory’s return to China in 1997. You’ll encounter replicas of village dwellings; traditional Chinese costumes and beds; a re-creation of an entire arcaded street in…
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Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence
This museum doesn’t exactly sound like a crowd pleaser, but its displays are as much about peace as war. It also occupies a knockout location in the Lei Yue Mun Fort (1887), which took quite a beating during WWII, and has sweeping views down to the Lei Yue Mun Channel and southeastern Kowloon. Exhibitions in the old redoubt, which you reach by elevator from street level, cover Hong Kong’s coastal defence over six centuries, from the Ming and Qing dynasties, through the colonial years and Japanese invasion, to the resumption of Chinese sovereignty. There’s a historical trail through the casemates, tunnels and observation posts almost down to the coast. To reach the museum …
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Lantau Link Visitors Centre
The Lantau Link Visitors Centre and its viewing platform (admission free; 7am-10.30pm Sun-Fri, 7am-1.30am Sat) is where you can take in the enormity of Tsing Yi Bridge and the Lantau Link, the combined road and rail transport connection between the New Territories and Lantau. The centre contains models, photographs and videos of the construction process – very much a crowd-pleaser for trainspotters and the hard-hat brigade. The Lantau Link has since been overshadowed somewhat by the Stonecutter’s Bridge, a graceful 1.5km span bridging the gap between the massive international container terminal in the New Territories and Tsing Yi Island. The visitors centre for the Lantau…
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Hong Kong Racing Museum
Horse racing is the most popular live spectator sport in Hong Kong, not least because it offers one of the few legal ways to gamble in the city. An evening at the races at Happy Valley Racecourse is also hugely atmospheric and is one of the quintessential Hong Kong things to do, if you happen to be around during one of the roughly fortnightly Wednesday evening races. The punters pack into the stands and trackside, and the atmosphere is electric. Though probably one for racing buffs only, you can also visit the Hong Kong Racing Museum, which has eight galleries and a cinema showcasing celebrated trainers, jockeys and horseflesh, and key races over the past 150 years. The m…
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Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb Museum
First, a warning: this is a bit of a journey for what is an anticlimactic peek through perspex. Don’t expect a terracotta army, but for those interested in the area’s ancient history, this is a hugely significant burial vault dating from the Eastern Han dynasty (AD 25–220). It is one of Hong Kong’s earliest surviving historical monuments and, believe it or not, was once on the coast. The tomb consists of four barrel-vaulted brick chambers that take the form of a cross; they are set around a domed central chamber and many of the bricks contained moulded patterns of fish, dragons and the like. It’s encased in a concrete shell for protection and visitors can only peep throug…
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Sam Tung Uk Museum
This imaginative and well-tended museum aims to portray traditional rural life as it was lived in this late-18th-century Hakka walled village, whose former residents, the Chan clan, were resettled in 1980. Within the complex a dozen three-beamed houses contain traditional Hakka furnishings, kitchenware, wedding items and agricultural implements, most of which came from two 17th-century Hakka villages in Bao’an county in Guangdong province. There are also special exhibits on such topics as rice farming in the New Territories. Behind the restored assembly and ancestral halls is the old village school, with interactive displays and videos on such topics as Hakka women, tradi…
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Chinese University of Hong Kong Art Museum
The Chinese University of Hong Kong Art Museum is divided into two sections. The four-floor East Wing Galleries house a permanent collection of Chinese paintings, and calligraphy, but it is the ceramics, jade objets d’art and other decorative arts that are especially worth inspecting, including 2000-year-old bronze seals and a large collection of jade flower carvings. The West Wing Galleries stage five to six special exhibitions each year. A shuttle bus from University station travels through the campus to the administration building at the top of the hill; for the museum, get off at the second stop. The bus runs every 20 to 30 minutes daily and is free except on Sunday…
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University Museum & Art Gallery
Established in 1911, Hong Kong University is the oldest and most prestigious of Hong Kong's eight universities. The University Museum & Art Gallery houses collections of ceramics and bronzes spanning 5000 years, including some exquisite blue and white Ming porcelain. The bronzes are in three groups: Shang- and Zhou-dynasty ritual vessels; decorative mirrors from the Warring States period to the Tang, Song, Ming and Qing dynasties; and almost 1000 small Nestorian crosses from the Yuan dynasty, the largest such collection in the world. (The Nestorians formed a Christian sect that arose in Syria, were branded heretics and moved into China during the 13th and 14th centuries.)…
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Hong Kong Railway Museum
Housed in the former Tai Po Market train station, built in 1913 in traditional Chinese style, this museum is sure to appeal to train anoraks and young boys in particular. Exhibits, including a narrow-gauge steam locomotive dating back to 1911, detail the history of the development of rail transport in the territory. There is also much attention paid to the opening of the Kowloon–Canton Railway in 1910 and its original terminus in Tsim Sha Tsui, which moved to Hung Hong in 1975. You can get to the museum most easily by alighting at Tai Wo MTR East Rail station, walking south through the Tai Wo Shopping Centre and housing estate, and crossing the Lam Tsuen River via Tai Wo …
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Museum of Ethnology
The Tai Po Kau Nature Reserve is a thickly forested 460-hectare ‘special area’ and is Hong Kong’s most extensive woodlands. It is home to many species of butterflies, amphibians, birds, dragonflies and trees, and is a superb place in which to enjoy a quiet walk. The reserve is supposed to emphasise conservation and education rather than recreation, and about 1km northwest of the reserve entrance and down steep Hung Lam Drive is the Kerry Lake Egret Nature Park and the much-touted, over-priced Museum of Ethnology. In the same complex is the delightful, multicuisine Little Egret Restaurant.
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Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware
At Hong Kong park’s northernmost tip is the Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware. Built in 1846 as the home of the commander of the British forces, it is the oldest colonial building in Hong Kong still standing in its original spot. The museum, a branch of the Hong Kong Museum of Art, houses a collection of antique Chinese tea ware: bowls, teaspoons, brewing trays, sniffing cups (used particularly for enjoying the fragrance of the finest oolong from Taiwan) and, of course, teapots made of porcelain or purple clay from Yixing. The ground-floor cafe is a great place to recharge over a pot of fine tea.
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Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences
This small museum houses medical implements and accoutrements (including an old dentistry chair, an autopsy table and herbal medicine vials and chests), and offers a rundown on how Hong Kong coped with the 1894 bubonic plague. The exhibits comparing Chinese and Western approaches to medicine are unusual and instructive, but the museum is less interesting for its exhibits than for its architecture: it’s housed in what was once the Pathological Institute, a breezy Edwardian-style brick-and-tile structure built in 1905 and fronted by palms and bauhinia trees.
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Law Uk Folk Museum
This small museum, a branch of the Hong Kong Museum of History, occupies two restored Hakka village houses that have stood in Chai Wan (Firewood Bay) – a district of nondescript office buildings, warehouses and workers’ flats – for more than two centuries. The quiet courtyard and surrounding bamboo groves are peaceful and evocative, and the displays – furniture, household items and farming implements – simple but charming. To reach the museum from the Chai Wan MTR station, follow exit B and walk for five minutes to the west.
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Sheung Yiu Folk Museum
This museum is a leisurely 20-minute walk from Pak Tam Chung south along the 1km-long Pak Tam Chung Nature Trail. The museum is part of a restored Hakka village typical of those found here in the 19th century. The village was founded about 150 years ago by the Wong clan, which built a kiln to make bricks. In the whitewashed dwellings, pigpens and cattle sheds – all surrounded by a high wall and watchtower to guard against raids by pirates – are farm implements, objects of daily use, furnishings and Hakka clothing.
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Dr Sun Yat Sen Museum
Sun Yat-sen was an early 20th-century revolutionary, dedicated to overthrowing the Qing dynasty, and a key figure in modern Chinese history. He had many links with Hong Kong, not least of them being his education here and his formative experience of the colony’s order and efficiency (standing in stark contrast to China at the time). Dr Sun’s story is one of the more interesting chapters in China’s history, to which the dull displays here do not really do justice. Audio guides cost $10.
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Hong Kong Design Centre
The design centre, just opposite the Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre, is housed in one of the most graceful colonial buildings in the territory. Built in 1896, it served as a bank, the offices of the Japanese Residents Association of Hong Kong before WWII and a school until it was renovated and given to the Hong Kong Federation of Designers. Even if it does not have any exhibitions open to the public, the exterior and public areas are worth a look.
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Madame Tussaud's
Most people go to the Peak for the views or the thrill of ascending Hong Kong's highest point at a preposterous incline on the Peak Tram. But there are some other lures, including this attraction in the Peak Tower, with eerie (and scary) wax likenesses of international stars as well as local celebrities such as Jackie Chan, Andy Lau, Michelle Yeoh, Aaron Kwok and Cecilia Cheung. There are lots of packages available as well.
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Hong Kong Monetary Authority Information Centre
Two IFC was until recently Hong Kong’s tallest (though not prettiest) building. You can’t get to the top, but you can get pretty high up by visiting the Hong Kong Monetary Authority Information Centre, which contains a research library and exhibition areas related to Hong Kong’s currency, fiscal policy and banking history. There are guided tours at 2.30pm Monday to Friday, and 10.30am Saturday.
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Wan Chai Livelihood Museum
Established by local residents and cultural enthusiasts, this small museum in the historic Blue House (so known as it is a house and it’s blue) celebrates local life over the decades in the tenement buildings around here, particularly the local handicrafts and small-scale factories once busy in the area (and in some cases still clinging on). There’s also a small selection of local souvenirs.
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Police Museum
Housed in a former police station, this seldom-visited museum in Wan Chai Gap, an attractive residential area en route to the Peak, deals with the history of the Hong Kong Police Force, which was formed in 1844. It’s small and rather static, although the intriguing Triad Societies Gallery and the very well-supplied Narcotics Gallery are worthwhile.
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Hong Kong Correctional Services Museum
Mock cells, gallows and flogging stands are the gruesome draws at this museum, about 500m southeast of Stanley Village Rd, which traces the history of jails, prisons and other forms of incarceration in Hong Kong.
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Hong Kong Space Museum & Theatre
Just east of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, this golf-ball-shaped building consists of the Hall of Space Science, the Hall of Astronomy and the large Space Theatre, one of the largest planetariums in the world. Exhibits include a lump of moon rock, rocket-ship models and NASA’s 1962 Mercury space capsule. Lasting about 40 minutes, they are mostly in Cantonese, but translations by headphones are available. The first show is at 1.30pm weekdays (12.20pm on Saturday and at 11.10am on Sunday) and the last at 8.30pm; children under three are not allowed entry. Advance bookings can be made by phone up to an hour before show time.
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