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Various walks and beaches on offer here. From Tai Au Mun, you can walk to the less than inspiringly named Clearwater Bay Beach One and Beach Two or Lung Ha Wan (Lobster Bay). Shark sightings send the locals into a lather each summer, and recently holes have been found in some nets. You’ve been warned.

The Kowloon-Canton Railway, which now ends at Hung Hom, used to finish at this clocktower, as did the rather more famous Orient Express (see Clocktower). Plans are afoot to extend the KCR to Tsim Sha Tsui again by 2003 or thereabouts. From here, you can walk for more than a kilometre around the TST waterfront and marvel at the odd optimistic fisherman dangling a line in the harbour.

In its heyday, Madonna and Alain Delon drank at what was Post ’97. It’s quieter now, but that’s no bad thing.

Most colonial buildings have been sacrificed to new development, but the colonial legacy is preserved in many of the roads named after royals (Queen’s Road), politicians (Peel Street), military officers (D’Aguilar, Pedder) and public servants (Bonham, Des Voeux).

Kowloon City is famous for its cheap and tasty Thai food. You may need a couple of beers to put out the fire from the beef salad.

Some 211,000 people ride the system daily, bypassing the Mid-Levels’ notorious traffic snarls.

Hardly a resort hotel but worth a night’s escape to leafy, low-rise Lamma Island. Modest but neat air-conditioned rooms with TV and minibar. Lamma’s famous Han Lok Yuen pigeon restaurant is nearby (see Han Lok Yuen, Lamma).

Where SoHo peters out, and the Mid-Levels begins amid forests of upscale apartment blocks.

The building looks a bit like the Sydney Opera House might if its roof had just been swatted by a giant hammer. The designers, however, maintain that the flowing lines are meant to evoke a bird in flight. It’s certainly a study in contrast with the upthrust towers scratching the sky all around. There was a race against time to finish stage two of the $5 billion complex in time for the 1997 Handover ceremony. Britain’s loss and China’s gain is commemorated with a big black obelisk. The venue also hosts occasional raves and pop concerts.