"Hong Kong - buildings, park ..." a Hong Kong Travel Page by westrella

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Happy Valley racetrack

Chinese New Year in 2000

2000 being a special year, my partner and I decided we ought to go somewhere that was going to make a big thing of it. We thought either China, Singapore or Hong Kong.

China lost out because neither of us thought that 2 weeks was worth going there for, we'd want longer than that! We tossed a coin between the other two.

We used asia-hotels.com to find a place to stay, which was ok, but not great. Just beware, because I now continually get spam from that site and affiliated ones and they seem to have a really well hidden unsubscribe system.

We were both students at the time so budget constrained us to cheap food, activities and accomodation. A relative acted as our guide for a trip into Shenzhen which was pretty exciting, Shenzhen being on the mainland.

The trip was only 10 days. We saw in the new year (fireworks in the harbour and a street parade), lots of buildings (J had an interest in modern architecture), the parks in the city, and a few trips over to other islands

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part of the Hong Kong Park

Parks

We visited Hong Kong Park, the zoological park and Victoria Park. In HK Park, there are sculptures scattered all around and a huge aviary. Victoria park is the sporting ground, including pool and jogging track.

Hong Kong Park is the best place to be if you really need time out. Although it's busy itself, it sure isn't as busy as what's happening on the street.

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Observation decks

Any city that has highrises ought to have these and there's no shortage of them in HK. J and I visited about 3 or 4 places, mostly banks going up about 50 storeys. Unfortunately our Lonely Planet has been passed on and I can't tell you where we went!

The moral of the story is that you don't have to ride up to Victoria Peak to get a good view of the city (although that way you'll see all of it), you can do it right in the heart of the place. Also you'll get a feel of the business nervecentre when you get into some of those banks.