DK Travel : Hong Kong : Places of interest

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Aberdeen Harbour

Residential blocks crowd Aberdeen’s small, lovely harbour, which is still filled with high-prowed wooden fishing boats despite the fact that overfishing and pollution have decimated the Hong Kong fishing industry. Ignore the ugly town centre and instead photograph the tyre-festooned sampans, or walk to the busy wholesale fish market at the western end of the harbour and watch the catches being loaded onto trucks and vans.

Fish market, Aberdeen Harbour
Amah Rock

An odd tower of rocks near Lion Rock Tunnel that when viewed from a certain angle, looks eerily like a woman with a baby on her back, hence the name. Legend holds that theamah’s husband sailed overseas to find work, while she waited patiently for his return. When a storm sunk his boat, she was so grief-stricken she turned to stone. An alternative interpretation is that the rock was created as an ancient phallic symbol. Take your pick.
Ap Lei Chau

Supposedly the most densely populated island in the world, Ap Lei Chau (or Duck Island), opposite the Aberdeen waterfront, is crowded with new high-rise developments. Bargain hunters may find a visit to the discount outlets at the southern end of the island worthwhile (see Designer Outlets in Ap Lei Chau). Close to the ferry pier are some small family businesses, boatyards and temples that have survived the modern developments.
Apliu Street

This huge street market is full of all sorts of strange junk and pirated goods. You’ll feel you’re on another planet here – this is as “local” as Hong Kong gets. It includes perhaps the world’s biggest collection of secondhand electrical stuff. Occasionally you can spot the odd retro turntable or radio, but most of it is rubbish.
Avenida da Praia Grande

The graceful boughs of banyan trees stretch over this elegant avenue, shading the candy-coloured pageant of colonial-era architecture. Unlike in Hong Kong, many of Macau’s historic piles survive in excellent condition. At the gorgeous fort-turned-hotel at Macau’s tip, the Pousada de São Tiago, the road becomes Avenida de Republica. Follow it around the point, where it turns into Rue da Barra and ends in the Porto Interior (Inner Harbour).
Bargain Beauty Treatments

When you reach breaking point with all the shopping malls and theme parks, rest and refresh yourself with an exceptionally cheap foot or back massage, or perhaps some nail painting. A vast range of treatments are available at Lo Wu (see Lo Wu Commercial City). Hotel health centres offer the assurance of professional reflexology and traditional massage. Submitting to several treatments at the same time is the last word in pampering.
Bird Garden

The small but pretty Bird Garden is where local folk, mostly elderly, take their birds to sing and get some fresh air. There’s also a small bird market here selling sparrows, finches and songbirds in elegant little cages. Fresh bird food, in the form of live grasshoppers, is fed to the birds through the cage bars with chopsticks.
Boundary Street

History is visible in the ruler-straight line of Boundary Street, which marked the border between British Hong Kong and China between 1860 and 1898. The lower part of the Kowloon Peninsula was ceded (supposedly in perpetuity) by China to the British, who wanted extra land for army training and commerce. The British then became worried over water shortages and wanted yet more land to protect Hong Kong Island from the threat of bombardment from newly invented long-range artillery. In 1898 the border was moved again to include the entire New Territories, this time on a 99-year lease (see 1898: The 99-Year Lease).
Camões Grotto

The author of the 16th-century Portuguese epicThe Lusiads may never actually have visited Macau, but don’t try telling the local Portuguese. Luis Vaz de Camões specialized in overblown, patriotic verse – a bust of him peers through the grotto’s gloom. The adjoining gardens are popular with old men and their caged birds first thing in the morning.
Canidrome

Go the dishlickers! This is the only greyhound racing club in Asia.