Our train to Hong Kong was set for later in the day, giving us the option to wake up early for a tai chi class. I think it was the first optional extra we actually turned down on the entire trip. We were utterly exhausted and far too excited for a lie-in, so that is exactly what we did. We slept until 9:00 AM, wandered down the street for a warm bowl of breakfast noodles, and met the group for checkout at 10:30 AM. Having a lovely slow morning.
Before we boarded the bus to the station, our guide Michael surprised Maureen, one of our fellow travelers, with a fresh mango cake for her birthday. After a enthusiastic round of Happy Birthday and a slice of cake, we were off.
The journey started with a small panic en route when Maureen’s husband, Richard, realized he couldn’t find his passport. This was hilarious in hindsight because we couldn’t go five minutes without Michael shouting, “Okay everybody, check passports!” It had become the unofficial group catchphrase. Fortunately, Richard found it wedged right beside his bus seat where it had slipped out of his pocket.
The rest of the train journey to Hong Kong was entirely uneventful, save for a quick stop to buy mystery foreign candy at the station gift shop. It was crucial to keep up our family holiday tradition of eating random international sweets at Christmas.
Once in Hong Kong, we checked into our hotel and got ready for our final group dinner. Michael promised he was taking us somewhere nice, so I put on a little extra effort. I wore a fancy dress I’d bought on West Street the day before, thinking it was perfectly fitting for a grand final evening. That illusion vanished the second we pulled up to the restaurant, which was essentially the local equivalent of a greasy spoon. When we gently questioned Michael about his definition of “nice,” he just grinned and declared, “It is nice! Best food in town!”
Honestly, who were we to argue? The food was spectacular. It tasted much closer to the Chinese takeaway we get back in the UK, which makes sense given how many UK takeout spots are run by families from Hong Kong. At the end of the meal, we presented Michael with the group tip and a collection of thank-you notes. He gave a sweet speech thanking us for exploring China with an open mind. He finished with a Chinese proverb: to become wise, you can either read 10,000 books or travel 10,000 miles, and he hoped the miles we logged together gave us plenty of wisdom. It was a lovely moment. After saying our goodbyes to Michael, the rest of us gathered in the hotel lobby, drinking and swapping trip stories until late into the night.
The next morning, we were looking forward to another lazy wake-up call now that Michael wasn’t around to manage our schedule. But he had one last early morning trick up his sleeve. At 7:45 AM, he called our room to mention he was currently on the airport bus, that traffic was nightmare, and that we should definitely take a taxi when our flight day arrived. It was helpful advice, sure, but it definitely could have been a text!
Since we were already wide awake, we decided to make the most of it. We met up with Daniel from our tour group to hunt down some traditional Hong Kong dim sum. We headed to a giant, canteen-style place Michael had recommended. We happily selected a feast of dishes, only for our server to sternly inform us that we had ordered way too much food. Before we even had a chance to decide what to cut, she made the executive decision for us, crossed several items off our order sheet, and briskly walked away.
She was completely right, of course. We still ended up with a mountain of food. Everything was delicious, especially the spring rolls, the beef wrapped in rice noodles, the pork buns, and the wonton soup. In fact, out of the entire spread, there was only one dish we weren’t wild about: a sticky rice parcel wrapped around beef. It was okay, just not as incredible as everything else.
After breakfast, Daniel needed to move over to his next hotel, so we parted ways with plans to meet up again that evening. Adam and I headed toward the center of Hong Kong Island to visit Victoria Peak, the famous mountain offering panoramic views of the city skyline. We rode the metro over and then hopped on the historic Peak Tram. The ascent reaches a 27-degree incline, but it feels infinitely steeper when you are on it. At points, it felt like we were traveling almost vertically.
The top of the peak was a bit of a surreal surprise. Instead of just a scenic lookout, we found a full-scale shopping mall that felt like a European theme park. There were Italian restaurants, British-style sweet shops selling pick-and-mix candy, and photography studios where you could pose in ballgowns or suits against backdrops of Regency drawing rooms and European castles. There was even a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. taking inspiration from Forrest Gump. It was bizarre, but entertaining nonetheless.
We made our way up to the top observation deck for photos and ended up running into half of our tour group at various points throughout the afternoon. Standing out in the 30°C heat and thick humidity quickly got the better of us. Still too full from dim sum to think about lunch, we decided to retreat back to the hotel to spend the afternoon lounging by the pool.
That plan hit a slight snag when we actually got to the pool deck. As it turned out, the setup wasn’t quite as relaxing as advertised. The water was absolute ice, which would have been fine in full sun, but the pool sat directly north of our skyscraper hotel and was completely shaded by surrounding towers with only a thin sliver of sun. Perched several floors up, it caught a freezing wind tunnel along with a constant soundtrack of heavy construction noise from the street below. After a brief, shivering swim and an even colder towel-off in the wind, we gave up and went back to our room for a hot shower. Not a problem I expected to have in 30-degree weather!
Refreshed and warmed up, we set off to explore the Kowloon side of Hong Kong. We took the scenic route on the Star Ferry instead of taking the underground train. Dusk settled while we were queuing, which meant we got a stunning front-row view of the harbor buildings lighting up against the night sky.
Once across the water, we walked toward the Avenue of Stars to meet Dan. Tracking each other down was a proper mission because the waterfront was absolutely packed with people in fancy dress on their way to Halloween parties across the city. Dan had grabbed some classic egg tarts on his way over and saved a couple for us. I was a bit hesitant at first because a previous egg tart I’d tried tasted more like scrambled egg in a pastry shell than the sweet, pastel de nata style dessert I was hoping for. Luckily, this one was heavenly.
After devouring the tarts, we strolled along the promenade checking out the handprints and statues on the Hong Kong version of the Walk of Fame. Truthfully, we didn’t recognize many of the names outside of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, and we couldn’t even manage to find Jackie’s handprints in the crowd.
Just before 8:00 PM, we staked out a prime spot along the water for the famous nightly light show, A Symphony of Lights. By 8:10 PM, we were standing there staring into the sky, wondering when it was actually going to start. We could see a faint laser beam or two shooting off a rooftop, but couldn’t tell what they were supposed to be pointing at. We kept moving along the promenade to see if we had a bad angle, but everyone around us looked just as baffled.
Eventually, the faint light flickered out. We assumed the main show must have been canceled for Halloween, or that we had somehow missed the real action. It wasn’t until a quick Google search later that night that we discovered those two sad laser beams *were* the entire show. Apparently, the event is legendary among tourists for being completely underwhelming and causing everyone to think they missed it. So in a way, we got the truly authentic experience!
Leaving the laser disappointment behind, we waded through the crowds toward the Temple Street Night Market. We were holding out hope for some street food classics such as meat on a stick, but the market turned out to be mostly stalls selling souvenirs, artwork, and knockoff designer handbags. It was still gorgeous and fun to browse, and we ended up buying a lovely hand-painted picture of the harbor skyline at night, capturing the very scene we had just been staring at during the light show.
Still lacking meat on a stick, we picked an open-air restaurant along the edge of the market and sat down for a proper feast: Hong Kong fried rice, salt and pepper squid, sweet and sour mini pork ribs, and greens. It was lovely. Halfway through the meal, the police suddenly rolled up. Everyone seated outside was promptly ordered out of their chairs so the staff could scoot all the tables off the sidewalk and cram us back inside the restaurant’s official boundary line. We sat squeezed together enjoying our dinner until the patrol moved on. After finishing up, we said our final goodbyes to Dan and waddled back to the hotel.
We enjoyed another lovely lie-in on our final day before checking out at 11:00 AM. After leaving our luggage at reception, we headed out to spend our last hours exploring. First up was the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens, a free entry park tucked right into the city. It was stunning, filled with flamingos, meerkats, tortoises, and a brilliant variety of birds and monkeys. We spent two hours wandering through the lush greenery until the midday heat kicked in. We ducked into a restaurant a few floors up to enjoy a late lunch with a great view of the city skyline.
Once we were full and the sun lost a bit of its intensity, we ventured back out. We checked out the Central Mid-Levels Escalator, which is the world’s longest outdoor covered escalator system. True to its name, it is just a massively long series of escalators carrying people up a steep hillside neighborhood.
Having checked off most of the main sights, we spent our remaining time just wandering wherever looked interesting. We stumbled across Tai Kwun, a super trendy courtyard full of coffee shops housed inside a restored historic prison yard. In a nearby market, we bought a panda and dragon Christmas bauble to add to our Christmas tree. We checked out some brilliant street art and popped into a quiet neighborhood temple.
Eventually, it was time to retrieve our bags from the hotel and head to the airport for our midnight flight. That brings us right up to now, sitting at the gate waiting to board the plane, feeling a bit bittersweet that this adventure has come to an end. It has been an unbelievable trip, made a million times better because I got to share it all with Adam. I already can’t wait for our next journey together, and I’ll be sure to tell you all about it when the time comes.
Lots of love,
Alice x