48 HOURS IN HONG KONG

On our way home from our trip to Shanghai we stopped off in Hong Kong for a few days. It was such an amazing opportunity to experience two, such different Chinese cities.

DAY ONE

We arrived in Hong Kong at around 3.30pm and made our way to our hotel on Hong Kong island by taxi. There’s so many taxis lined up waiting at the airport which was great! Make sure you know which coloured taxi to get in though; red, blue or green. Red is Urban which goes to Hong Kong island, so we hopped in one of those. I was pleasantly surprised at how well the driver spoke English, but it didn’t matter so much as there was airport staff helping tourists get into the cabs.

We settled into our hotel and at around 6pm we headed to the famous Sneaker Street; we’d been told to head there and check it out. You’ve probably guessed from the street name what’s there. Tonnes of trainer shops! And I mean tonnes! The street houses a ridiculous amount of sneakers, including some of the latest ones out. We spent all night looking around the shops here, it felt like a really busy Oxford St. There weren’t just sneaker shops though, we stumbled upon commercial shops like H&M, Forever 21 and even NYX Cosmetics which my face was on the front of their store! It was absolutely mental seeing myself in one of the busiest streets of Hong Kong! One of my favourite things about this shopping district was the quirkiness to it. It’s so different to anywhere else I’ve shopped before. You’d come across dingy doorways that led to a lift, and if you went up there would be cool, boutique shops on every floor. There were hundreds of stores to look in, hence why we spent all night there.

DAY TWO

On day two we had a busy day planned. We got up early and headed to the metro, which can I add was really easy to use. The assistant at the ticket counter spoke English and was really helpful about what ticket we needed; we purchased a day tourist pass for £6.50 which was a pretty good price. We took the metro for 25 minutes to Tung Chung, where the Ngong Ping 360 Cable Car was located. There was a little queue when we arrived but it didn’t take too long to get into one of the cars. The whole journey took 30 minutes to get right to the top to Ngong Ping, and just wow! You were so high up in the clouds! You were led out to a man-made mini Chinese village which you strolled through to get to the main sights: Po Lin Monastery, Big Buddha & Wisdom garden. I would 100% recommend visiting this sight. The architecture and sculptures you will witness are just stunning. I’ve never travelled somewhere before with such a religious culture and it was beautiful to be a part of it. We got a return on the cable car so we headed back down once we were ready.

On our walk back to the metro, Robin spotted a shop he wanted to pop into. We didn’t realise we were actually inside a shopping outlet where brands were selling discounted clothing and accessories. We had a cheeky shopping session before jumping back on the metro and we got off at Central Hong Kong. I wanted to come to this area as I’d seen a really pretty market on Instagram called Pettinger Street. It was a short walk from the metro and on our way we spotted lots of commercial shops again like Cos and Topshop, and from this we guessed it must be another busy area of the city. We even stumbled upon an Iced Tea shop with a huge queue outside, so we were instantly intrigued. It was a new shop where your Ice Tea was given to you in an inflatable flamingo – how cool! I couldn’t just walk past without getting an instagrammable drink could I! Our feet started to hurt from all the walking at around 5ish so we headed back to the hotel to relax for an hour or so before heading back out.

We’d heard about a nightly light show in Hong Kong on the seafront that started at 8pm, so we strolled there from our hotel. It took about half an hour to walk and it was lovely just strolling through the city taking in all the sights and high rise buildings. We were on Hong Kong Island side of the river but I think the other side would have been much better to have seen it from. It was also a little cloudy the evening we saw it, so again, some of the laser lights you couldn’t see very well. I wouldn’t say it was the best light show I’ve seen, but it is beautiful to walk along the seafront seeing the city skyline at night. We headed straight to dinner after this and ended up at Beef & Liberty – a popular burger restaurant; really great food!

DAY THREE

On our last day in Hong Kong we had things planned until 7pm, as that was when we had to head to the airport. We had a little lay in and checked out of our hotel at 11am and stored our luggage there to collect later in the day. We jumped in an Uber and headed to the Peak Tram – a vintage tram that heads up above the city. Luckily the queue wasn’t too long, and we were on the tram within 5 minutes. I had heard that there could sometimes be big queues, so be prepared for that if you’re ever thinking of visiting. It was crazy how the tram went up through the city at pretty much a 45 degree angle! When you reach the top you enter into a shopping mall with amazing views over the city! It was again a little cloudy but you still got a fantastic view. We spent an hour or so at the top before heading back down and we then made our way to Time Square – another busy shopping area. We spent time looking around the shops and grabbed a bite to eat. After this Robin wanted to head to a shop near Kowloon park, so we jumped in an Uber and spent a few hours strolling around. We actually ended up walking all the way to Sneaker Street and stumbled upon a really good market, where we purchased a few little touristy gifts.

And that was that! We were ready to head back to our hotel, grab our luggage and head home. Hong Kong you were amazing! I would definitely go back! It had such a buzz to the city and there was lots to see. It’s also really great for shopping, especially streetwear! Have any of you ever been to Hong Kong before?

Peace
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