Hong Kong/Melinda (and others?)

I'm planning a vacation in Hong Kong at the end of September and welcome any advice. We are mostly interested in food. We're only going to have about 4 days in Hong Kong. I'd like to spend a little time in Macau as well.

Erica

I was in Hong Kong a year ago. I can tell you absolutely where to stay if you can get it. It fills us fast. It is the YMCA. Try to get a Harbor View. The price is excellent. The location is fantastic-- a block away from the priciest hotels-- a block away from the ferry. The food is very good and well priced and there is a McDonalds a block away if you want to go cheaper, a huge mall a block away. The shuttle from the airport stops at the door. It can't be beat.

There are some marvelous temples. There is the bird garden and adjacent flower market both of which are really neat. Do take the ferry and go to the top of the mountain for an overview. There is not much to see on Macau. When you cross on the ferry, there are two ways to get up to the mountainview. YOu will find a long line at the tram. Take a cab up for the same price. There will be no line coming down from the mountain. Take the tram then.

There is a good gift shop up there with decent prices.

Erica you take the jet foil from Hong Kong to Macau - we would plan a whole day when we went there, which was usually if someone came to visit us.

Food - really any place where you see locals is probably a good place. McD's isn't want you are thinking of, living there however we did need a "fix" every now and then and would go to McD's by Repulse Bay since it was close to our apartment - there are great dim sum restaurants in Wan Chi on the island.

RHofm is referring to Victoria Peak when saying go to the top of the mountain - there is a tram you can take up, at the top is a wonderful view of the mainland, harbor, sea etc.

Do you know if you are staying on the mainland or the island? Good places to eat on both sides.

Don't think the YMCA in Hong Kong is like ours. It is a regular hotel, very nice indeed. And with a million dollar view.

Are you still planning a trip to HK?

We just booked the trip yesterday! You will probably think we are crazy, we are only staying four nights in Hong Kong. The first two at the Hilton (using my points to stay someplace fancy) then the next two at a different hotel, forget the name, on the harbor with a view.

We first talked about going to Hong Kong the year we met, 1989, but are only just now actually doing it.

The trip is the last full week of September.

If anyone has been there fairly recently - is the street food safe to eat for westerners? I read the tap water was not ok, best to stick with bottled.
Erica

Glad you are still going Erica - will it be part of a trip or just there and then home again?

There's lots to see and do - we had a ball when my ex-brother-in-law visited and my folks visited, enjoyed doing things with them [can you believe those were our only visitors?! - free room and board and they were the only ones to come see us].

I know Westerners who ate the street food - I just avoided the vegetables in the street market because I knew night fertilizer was used on them.

Honestly, I ate in places there that I know I would not eat in if they were here.

We had the big bottles of water delivered to our apartment, so I would say stick with bottled water - and we did not swim in Repulse Bay or any of those near us, except the one time my younger son & I went on a day boat trip on our friend's boat and we went up into the "good" water [which was away from the sewage and was nice clear beautiful water].

Wish I was going with you - know things have changed since we lived there, and I understand Victoria Harbor is even smaller now.

Can't wait to hear all about your trip when you return!

We were there in March pre-cruise and again in April during our cruise. We drank the water for the 3 days we were there in March. We ate in restaurants without worry. We liked Hong Kong but it is very Westernized. We preferred Beijing which is still very, very Chinese even though it is a huge city. Xian is also westernized. In Beijing we saw much more of the culture of China.

We lived there and we were told not to drink the water - we were told to wash vegetables, lettuce etc in bleach water which I did not do, but we did listen and not drink tap water.

Hong Kong is very Westernized because it was a British colony before it went back to the Chinese. However it is still "Chinese" - the little shops, the back alleys where food and goods are sold from stalls, the meat shop with flat chickens that look like Frisbees hanging in a row across the top of the store opening [we called them Road Chickens], a man on a bicycle with a dead gutted pig on the back of it, the roasted pig being carried on a platter to a special occasion, brides in red or pink, the bedding hanging over the balcony rails, people practicing the Lion Dance out in public, chicken feet out in the open at the shop you just walked by............

Yes, but it's not like Beijing.

My favorite parts of Hong Kong were the harbor itself which we had a perfect view of from our room at the YMCA; the flower market; the bird garden; and the temples.

By the way, even the Chinese don't think of Hong Kong as exactly Chinese, since when you fly there from China, it is an international flight with international rules, different from those that govern flights from say, Beijing to Xian.

I want to go! Mandarin is my second language... Zi Jin!

Jeffrey

Jeffrey we were fortunate my husband's company was paying for flights, apt, school. Funds, for sure!

RH I would think since the '08 Olympics Beijing is more western than when I was there.

Honestly, I did like living in Tokyo as it was more "foreign" than HK, but HK is definitely "foreign" - just get in a taxi that doesn't want to take you anywhere, they will start speaking Mandarin or Cantonese and forget they had just spoken to you in English.

We were there in March 2012. The Olympics made a number of useful changes like real toilets in the Beijing airport-- even in Xian the toilets were squatters. And they got rid of some of the hutangs but still a lot of them are left intact.