DK Travel : Hong Kong : Places of interest

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Victoria Park

Hong Kong’s largest urban park opened in 1957, and features a bronze statue of the killjoy British monarch, which one “art activist” once redecorated with a can of red paint. There’s a swimming pool, tennis courts and lawn bowling greens. It’s also the venue for the Chinese New Year Flower Market, and every Sunday at noon would-be politicians can stand up and shoot their mouths off at the forum.
Wandering Among the Gei

Perhaps the simplest yet most worthwhile thing to do in Guangzhou is to wander aimlessly along itsgeis , the narrow alleys between the ancient ramshackle houses in the older parts of town. The streets above Shamian Island up as far as Liwanhu district are especially good. Strolling down these byways gives a sense of the everyday life that has carried on here for hundreds of years. Absorb yourself in the minutiae of domestic life and small-scale industries, such as beauty treatments, maybe in the form of eyebrow plucking with a simple piece of cotton.
West Kowloon Reclamation

Currently a pedestrian no-go area, the reclaimed land of West Kowloon is a jumble of road intersections and messy building sites. It will also be the site of what is projected to be the world’s tallest building, assuming it goes ahead (see Modern Buildings). The 480-m (1,575-ft) high Kowloon Station Tower is due for completion in 2006 or 2007 and will cost an estimated HK$20 billion (US$2.56 billion).
White Cloud Mountain

Overlooking the city haze is a huge wooded area dominated by a series of ridges and peaks, offering open space, fresh air and cooling breezes.
Window of the World

Of all the oddities springing from Shenzhen’s fevered theme parks appetite, Window of the World is, to Western eyes, the most surreal: a reduction (literally and metaphorically) of the real world. Mount Fuji becomes a 6-m (20-ft) slagheap, tourists pose in Thai national dress in front of the Taj Mahal and, poignantly, Manhattan retains its World Trade Center. Live shows are put on at set times on most “continents”, including one from a suspiciously Asiatic-looking African tribe. There’s also a Grand Canyon flume ride and a real snow ski-slope.
Wong Tai Sin Temple

A noisy, colourful affair, Wong Tai Sin is always crowded and aswirl with incense smoke. Legend holds that Wong Tai Sin (originally known as Huang Chu-ping), who was born in Zhejiang Province around AD 328, could see the future and make wishes come true. The temple opened in 1921, after a Taoist priest brought a sacred portrait of Huang to Hong Kong. Its vivid, stylised architecture contrasts sharply with the surrounding concrete boxes. Worshippers from the three main Chinese religions – Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism – flock here, not to mention 100-odd soothsayers hawking their services. Find out for yourself if they are as accurate as Huang. Behind the temple is an ancient and mysterious tomb that still baffles historians.

Smoky offerings
Yuen Yuen Institute

This temple complex is popular with Buddhists, Confucianists and Taoists alike. It’s usually full of worshippers, so be respectful. The main building is a replica of Beijing’s Temple of Heaven. The notices outside carry the latest soothsayers’ wisdom on which signs in the Chinese horoscope are set for an auspicious year. Try the cheap and tasty vegetarian food in the Institute’s restaurant.

Yuen Yuen Institute
Yuexiu Park

The lovely expanse of park contains a sculpture of the Five Rams, the symbol of Guangzhou, and a monument to Sun Yat-Sen, the revered former Hong Kong resident and grandfather of the Chinese revolution. The Municipal Museum is housed in the Zhen Hai Tower, the last remnant of the city’s 14th-century walls.

Five Rams sculpture, Yeuxiu Park
Zoological and Botanical Gardens

Founded in 1864, a modicum of Victorian gentility survives here in the wrought-iron bandstand and shrub-lined paths. Not, however, in the monkey house, where the world’s largest collection of red-cheeked gibbons shriek and swing and copulate. Be prepared for some judicious covering of young eyes. Also jaguars, leopards, kangaroos and 280 species of birds.
“Old” Wan Chai

This might soon be labelled Hong Kong’s “Little Thailand”. Dozens of Thai mini-marts and hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurants have sprung up amid Wan Chai market in the narrow warren of lanes that run between Johnston Road and Queen’s Road East. You can find the same dishes here for a quarter of what you’ll pay in smart Thai restaurants just blocks away.