In 2008 I had a twelve hour stopover in Hong Kong on the way to Australia. Therefore, I visited Hong Kong at the speed of light and I did not manage to get a lot of impressions. This post will give you an idea of the sights you’ll see on a stopover tour from the airport. My main impression was that Hong Kong is full of “the tallest…”, “the longest…”, “the oldest…” and “the best…”. Whether all these statements are correct I haven’t verified, but our Elvis singing tour guide was throwing around phrases like this the whole day.

Avenue of Stars

The Avenue of Stars is Hong Kong’s answer to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Here you can find the hand prints of Jet Li and Chow Yun Fat for example.

Star Ferry

Following the visit to the Avenue of Stars we took the Star Ferry, which apparently is an attraction in its own right as it has been ferrying people around for 120 years.

Man Mo Temple

On the other side of the river (don’t ask me geographical questions because after the long flight and the fact we completely relied on the guide to take us to the good places wherever they are) we visited the Man Mo temple.

Tsing Ma Bridge

The last stop of this tiring tour (tiring because of the lack of sleep on the plane not because of the tour itself) was a viewpoint overlooking Tsing Ma Bridge. The ninth longest span suspension bridge (according to Wikipedia) and the longest of its kind with both a road for cars and a railway track (according to the guide who liked to brag).

On this look-out point we also found a tree which turned a 100 years old in 2002. It would be 113 by now!

Conclusion

Overall Hong Kong is a completely different city than Shanghai and Beijing and I really enjoyed the short day we spent there. Transportation and such is very efficient and well organised and when you’re staying in a city for only a few hours that’s very important. I would not hesitate to go there again.