Other sights in Hong Kong
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Tian Tan Buddha
On a hill above the monastery sits the Tian Tan Buddha, a seated representation of Lord Gautama some 23m high (or 26.4m with the lotus), or just under 34m if you include the podium. There are bigger Buddha statues elsewhere – notably the 71m-high Grand Buddha at Leshan in China's Sichuan province – but apparently these are not seated, outdoors or made of bronze. It weighs 202 tonnes, by the way. The large bell within the Buddha is controlled by computer and rings 108 times during the day to symbolise escape from what Buddhism terms the '108 troubles of mankind'.
The podium is composed of separate chambers on three different levels. On the first level are six statues of…
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Chi Lin Nunnery
One of the most beautiful and arrestingly built environments in Hong Kong, this large Buddhist complex, originally dating from the 1930s, was rebuilt completely of wood (and not a single nail) in the style of the Tang dynasty in 1998. It is a serene place, with lotus ponds, immaculate bonsai tea plants and bougainvillea, and silent nuns delivering offerings of fruit and rice to Buddha and arhats (Buddhist disciples freed from the cycle of birth and death) or chanting behind intricately carved screens. The design (involving intricately interlocking sections of wood joined without a single nail) is intended to demonstrate the harmony of humans with nature. It’s pretty…
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Tsim Sha Tsui East Promenade
One of the finest city skylines in the world has to be that of Hong Kong Island, and the promenade here is one of the best ways to get an uninterrupted view. It’s a lovely place to stroll around during the day, but it really comes into its own in the evening, during the nightly Symphony of Lights, a spectacular sound-and-light show involving 44 buildings on the Hong Kong Island skyline, which runs from 8pm to 8.20pm. The new Deck ‘n Beer bar located here is a great spot to have an alfresco, waterside drink (weather permitting).
Along the first part of the promenade is the Avenue of the Stars, which pays homage to the Hong Kong film industry and its stars, with…
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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…
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Ngong Ping Plateau
Perched 500m up in the western hills of Lantau is the Ngong Ping Plateau, a major drawcard for Hong Kong day-trippers and foreign visitors alike, especially since 1993, when one of the world's largest statues of Buddha was unveiled here.
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Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple
An explosion of colourful pillars, roofs, lattice work, flowers and incense, this busy temple is a destination for all walks of Hong Kong society, from pensioners and businesspeople to parents and young professionals.
Some come simply to pray, others to divine the future with chìm – bamboo ‘fortune sticks’ that are shaken out of a box on to the ground and then read by a fortune-teller (they’re available free from the left of the main temple).
The complex, adjacent to the Wong Tai Sin housing estate, was built in 1973 and is dedicated to the god of that name, who began his life as a humble shepherd in Zhejiang province. When he was 15 an immortal taught Wong Tai…
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Lantau Link Viewing Platform
The Lantau Link Visitors Centre and its viewing platform 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.
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Mai Po Nature Reserve
The 270-hectare nature reserve includes the Mai Po Visitor Centre at the northeastern end, where you must register; the Mai Po Education Centre to the south, with displays on the history and ecology of the wetland and Deep Bay; floating boardwalks and trails through the mangroves and mud flats; and a dozen hides (towers or huts from where you can watch birds up close without being observed). Disconcertingly, the cityscape of Shenzhen looms to the north.
Visitors are advised to bring binoculars (they may be available for rent at the visitor centre for $20) and cameras, and to wear comfortable walking shoes or boots but not bright clothing. It is best to visit at high tide…
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Hong Kong Park
Designed to look anything but natural, Hong Kong Park is one of the most unusual parks in the world, emphasising artificial creations such as its fountain plaza, conservatory, waterfall, indoor games hall, playground, t’ai chi garden, viewing tower, museum and arts centre. For all its artifice, the eight-hectare park is beautiful in its own weird way and, with a wall of skyscrapers on one side and mountains on the other, makes for some dramatic photographs.
The best feature of the park is the delightful Edward Youde Aviary, named after a former Hong Kong governor (1982–86) and China scholar. Home to more than 600 birds representing some 90 different species, it’s nothing…
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Man Mo Temple
You won’t need a map to find the Man Mo Temple: just follow the smell of incense curling from giant cones suspended from the ceiling of this busy 18th-century temple. One of the oldest and most famous in Hong Kong, Man Mo (literally ‘civil’ and ‘martial’) is dedicated to two deities. The civil deity is a Chinese statesman of the 3rd century BC called Man Cheung, who is worshipped as the god of literature and is represented holding a writing brush. The military deity is Kwan Yu (or Kwan Tai), a Han-dynasty soldier born in the 2nd century AD and now venerated as the red-cheeked god of war; he is holding a sword. Kwan Yu’s popularity in Hong Kong probably has more to do with…
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Bank of China Tower
The Bank of China (BOC) is headquartered in the awesome Bank of China Tower to the southeast of its old home (the Old Bank of China building at 1 Bank St). The tower was designed by Chinese-born American architect IM Pei and completed in 1990. This 70-storey building is Hong Kong’s third-tallest structure after Two International Finance Centre in Central and Central Plaza in Wan Chai. The asymmetry of the building is puzzling at first glance, but it’s really a simple geometric exercise. Rising from the ground like a cube, it is successively reduced, quarter by quarter, until the south-facing side is left to rise upward on its own. Many local Hong Kong Chinese see the…
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HSBC Building
Make sure you have a close-up look at the stunning headquarters of what is now HSBC (formerly the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank) headquarters, designed by British architect Sir Norman Foster in 1985. The building is a masterpiece of precision, sophistication and innovation. And so it should be. On completion in 1985 it was the world’s most expensive building (it cost upward of US$1 billion). The building reflects architect Sir Norman’s wish to create areas of public and private space and to break the mould of previous bank architecture. The ground floor is public space, which people can traverse without entering the building; from there, escalators rise to the main banking…
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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…
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Tai Po Kau Nature Reserve
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 crisscrossed with four main tracks ranging in length from 3km (red trail) to 10km (yellow trail), plus a short nature trail of less than 1km. If possible, avoid the reserve on Sunday and public holidays, when the crowds descend upon the place. The reserve is supposed to emphasise conservation and education rather than recreation, and about 1km northwest of the reserve entrance and down steep Hung…
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Chinese University 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…
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University Museum & Art Gallery
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.) The museum is to the left of the university’s Main Building and opposite the start of Hing Hon Rd.
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Po Lin Monastery
Po Lin is a huge Buddhist monastery and temple complex that was built in 1924. Today it seems more of a tourist honeypot than a religious retreat, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors a year and still being expanded. Most of the buildings you'll see on arrival are new, with the older, simpler ones tucked away behind them.
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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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Tin Hau Temple
At the western end of Stanley Main St, past a tiny Tai Wong shrine and through the shopping complex called Stanley Plaza, is a Tin Hau temple, built in 1767 and said to be the oldest building in Hong Kong. It has undergone a complete renovation since then, however, and is now a concrete pile (though the interior is traditional). A sign explains that the tiger skin hanging on the wall came from an animal that ‘weighed 240 pounds, was 73 inches long, and three feet high [and] shot by an Indian policeman, Mr Rur Singh, in front of Stanley Police Station in the year 1942’.
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Ap Lei Chau
On the southern side of the harbour is Ap Lei Chau (Duck’s Tongue Island), one of the most densely populated places in the world. It used to be a centre for building junks, but now it’s covered with housing estates, including a huge one called South Horizons. There’s not much to see there, but a walk across the bridge to the island affords good views. From Aberdeen Promenade you can get a boat across to Ap Lei Chau (adult/child under 12 $1.80/1). Ap Lei Chau is also a destination for bargain hunters drawn to its discount outlet stores.
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Pak Sing Ancestral Hall
Tai Ping Shan, a tiny neighbourhood in Sheung Wan and one of the first areas to be settled by Chinese after the founding of the colony, has several small temples clustered around where Tai Ping Shan St meets Pound Lane. Kwun Yam Temple (34 Tai Ping Shan St) honours the goddess of mercy, Kun Iam - the Taoist equivalent of the Virgin Mary. Further to the northwest, the recently renovated Pak Sing Ancestral Hall was originally a storeroom for bodies awaiting burial in China. It contains the ancestral tablets of around 3000 departed souls.
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Kwun Yam Temple
Tai Ping Shan, a tiny neighbourhood in Sheung Wan and one of the first areas to be settled by Chinese after the founding of the colony, has several small temples clustered around where Tai Ping Shan St meets Pound Lane. Kwun Yam Temple honours the goddess of mercy, Kun Iam - the Taoist equivalent of the Virgin Mary. Further to the northwest, the recently renovated Pak Sing Ancestral Hall (42 Tai Ping Shan St) was originally a storeroom for bodies awaiting burial in China. It contains the ancestral tablets of around 3000 departed souls.
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Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club
Not so long ago the waterfront in Causeway Bay used to be a mass of junks and sampans huddling in the typhoon shelter for protection, but these days it’s nearly all yachts. The land jutting out to the west is Kellett Island, which has been a misnomer ever since a causeway connected it to the mainland in 1956, and further land reclamation turned it into a peninsula. It is home to the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, which retains its ‘Royal’ moniker in English only.
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