DK Travel : Hong Kong : Places of interest

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Repulse Bay

Another popular destination, Repulse Bay’s beach is clean and well-tended, if sometimes over-crowded with thousands of visitors. Eating and drinking choices range from small cafés on the beach to the Verandah , a classy restaurant run by the same group as the Peninsula Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui. Try afternoon tea here. The Hong Kong Life Guards Club at the far southern end of the beach is also worth a look for its scores of statues of gods and fabulous beasts.
River Trips

Escape the fumes and look back on the city from the river. A number of operators offer cruises. Try an evening trip on theWhiteSwan, a lovely old masted yacht.
Ruinas do São Paulo

The façade and intricate mosaic floor are all that remain of Macau’s grandest church, perched atop a steep flight of stone steps and propped up by a viewing platform at the rear. In its heyday, the Jesuit-designed Cathedral was hailed as the greatest monument to Christian-ity in the East. It caught fire during a massive typhoon in 1835, and only extensive structural work in the early 1990s stopped the façade from crumbling to rubble.
Science Museum

There is lots of hands-on stuff here, providing a fun and educational introduction to many facets of science. Any child with a healthy dose of curiosity will spend hours pushing buttons, pulling levers and marvelling at gadgets. (see Science Museum)
Science Museum

Some fascinating interactive displays here if you don’t mind fighting your way through the giggling, pushing throngs of schoolchildren. There are enough buttons to push, gadgets to grapple with and levers to tweak to satisfy even the most hard-to-please kids. Basic principles of chemistry, physics, biology and other sciences are explained but in a much more entertaining and less dry manner than in the classroom.
Sha Tin Racecourse

Hong Kong’s most famous horseracing track is at Hong Kong Island’s Happy Valley (see Happy Valley Races), but the people who live in this part of the world are so mad about horseracing they built a second racetrack in the NT. More than 85,000 punters have been known to pack Sha Tin’s $500-million world-class track, where record-breaking sums are wagered on Saturday and Sunday afternoons between September and June. Form guides are published in theSouth China Morning Post on race days.

Sha Tin Racecourse
Shamian Island

The small islet in southwest Guangzhou long served as the main gateway to China, the only place where merchants and diplomats were allowed to do business with the Empire. Today it’s a lovely leafy haven, recently restored and beautified with some good accommodation, dining and drinking options and quiet riverside walks.
Shanghai Street

The whole area around Shanghai and Reclamation streets is a traditional Chinese neighbourhood, if somewhat less vibrant and seedier than it was a few years ago. Interesting nooks and shops include funeral parlours, herbalists, health tea shops, paper kite shops and, at 21 Ning Po Street, a shop selling pickled snakes.

Kitchen utensils shop, Shanghai Street
Shek O

Remote and undeveloped, the village of Shek O is worth the relatively lengthy train and bus ride necessary to reach it. The serenity is upset only at weekends by droves of sun worshippers heading for its lovely beach. A short walk to the small headland leads to striking rock formations, pounding waves and cooling South China Sea breezes. Surfing and body boarding are often viable on Big Wave Bay, a short walk or taxi ride north. Head to the Black Sheep (see The Black Sheep), a lovely bar and Mediterranean-style restaurant, for a post-ramble beer and a bite to eat.

House by the sea, Shek O
Sheung Wan and Western

The older, more traditional Chinese areas of town, just west of Central’s sleek corporate headquarters and the smart shops, are worth exploring by foot. The reward is a fascinating array of shops, mostly wholesalers, selling dried seafood (the pervading smell here), ginseng, edible swallows’ nests, snakes, arcane herbal ingredients and paper offerings for the dead. Try the streets around Bonham Strand.