| One should pity the poor locals who never lift their eyes from the streets – Hong Kong can be one of the most riveting and unexpectedly beautiful urban spectacles on earth. A two-minute walk from the bustle of Central reveals a harbour view that the architectural boom of the 1980s and 1990s has turned into a mixture of Manhattan and San Francisco, with added shipping bustle. At night, it just gets better. The view of Hong Kong’s glittering lights from the Peak by night is unforgettable, particularly at 2000 when a nightly laser and music show invigorates the towers of Central and Kowloon’s Tsim Sha Tsui. By contrast, the south side of Hong Kong island, at Stanley or Repulse Bay, is an entrancing islandscape straight out of a classical Chinese ink painting. And any backstreet market provides folksy, ethnic charm by the barrow load. Lamma Island provides a picturesque (power plant excepted) getaway and some excellent seafood restaraunts and vegetarian cafes. Old colonial Hong Kong may have been short on grand monuments but the now famous Bank of China and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) give the place a 21st-century buzz suited to one of the Pacific Rim’s most important economic hubs. These buildings are sharing the limelight with the rainbow-coloured light show of The Center skyscraper, the waterside steel wings of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre and the soaring International Finance Center. Die-hard colonialists can content themselves with Government House, the Former French Mission Building, the Former Gate Lodge on the peak, the Former Kowloon-Canton Railway Clock Tower, the Former Kowloon British School and a host of other ‘Olds’ and ‘Formers’. |