During my week-long stay, I sampled everything for which 'Honkers' used to be famous.
I bought a cut-price cassette-recorder, had a green silk Chinese dressing-gown run up for me in 24 hours, visited the old colonial mansions on the Peak and was rowed by sampan out to one of the huge floating restaurants in Aberdeen Harbour.
There was already an end-of-empire feel about the place, although two decades more would pass before Britain's lease ran out and it was handed back to China.
You
didn't have to be an imperialist to feel sadness when our flag was
lowered on an island that had played a key role in British maritime
history for a century and a half.
Nor to fear for its future as truckloads of Chinese troops took over, each grim-faced soldier rather sinisterly clutching a party balloon.
But the expected meltdown to communism never came.
Instead, China's leaders have used Hong Kong - along with Shanghai (hot travel city for China best tours)- to symbolise their new love of Western capitalism, if not democracy. In that role, its growth has been phenomenal - voted the world's top economic centre by the World Economic Forum for the past two years.
It may seem an odd choice for a long weekend break such as I chose for my return visit, especially with the ten-hour BA night flight both ways. But there's a certain restfulness in going somewhere so utterly removed from Britain's current economic woes and our hang-ups about wealth and conspicuous consumption.
And although my primary purpose was a trip down journalistic memory lane with my wife Sue, Hong Kong seemed far more fascinating this time around.
Nor to fear for its future as truckloads of Chinese troops took over, each grim-faced soldier rather sinisterly clutching a party balloon.
But the expected meltdown to communism never came.
Instead, China's leaders have used Hong Kong - along with Shanghai (hot travel city for China best tours)- to symbolise their new love of Western capitalism, if not democracy. In that role, its growth has been phenomenal - voted the world's top economic centre by the World Economic Forum for the past two years.
It may seem an odd choice for a long weekend break such as I chose for my return visit, especially with the ten-hour BA night flight both ways. But there's a certain restfulness in going somewhere so utterly removed from Britain's current economic woes and our hang-ups about wealth and conspicuous consumption.
And although my primary purpose was a trip down journalistic memory lane with my wife Sue, Hong Kong seemed far more fascinating this time around.
The first great
change, infinitely for the better, is touching down. The old Kai Tak
Airport used to be in the centre of Kowloon, the colony's mainland
settlement, with its runway jutting out into Victoria Harbour. Landing
was a white-knuckle ride, with mountains looming on one side and
overcrowded apartment blocks on the other, so close that you could see
people through their windows.
Since the Chinese takeover, a highly efficient international airport has been built 18 miles away at Chek Lap Kok, which I wish I could pronounce without a stupid schoolboy-ish smirk.
One might have thought China's first priority would have been obliterating every last trace of colonial rule. But the island's street and place names still exude 19th century Britishness: Victoria Harbour, Connaught Road, Queen's Road Central, Repulse Bay, Stanley Market. For more about these place, you can check out Hong Kong travel guide.
The Star Ferry, plying between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, has its same Victorian termini with plank walkways like Margate Pier and iron turnstiles made in Lancashire.
Downtown Hong Kong, though, is a different storey (misspelling intentional). A brand-new city has taken shape, which glories in its glass and metal skyscrapers, and the riches they contain, just as New York used to do pre-9/11. Here, bankers aren't reviled, but looked up to in every sense. The showiest high-rises are the headquarters of international banks, none more so than Sir Norman Foster's creation for HSBC, which resembles a giant pink and grey jukebox.
Rather than the crusty old colonial Brits of yesteryear, there is now a huge international, and mostly young, expatriate population working in the ever-booming financial sector and enjoying one of the world's lowest tax rates.
Living space is at such a premium that even newish apartment buildings are routinely torn down and replaced by brand-new ones allowing even greater numbers of occupants to be crammed in.
'A flat will be advertised as being so many square feet,' one young British businessman told me. 'What you don't realise is that that includes your parking spot and your share of the communal pool.'
On the streets - with their smogmasked crowds, slimline trams and outsize public ashtrays - money doesn't just talk, it uses a loud-hailer. The old instant tailors and shirtmakers and cut-price electronics bazaars have given way to stores and malls selling every top European fashion label - Prada, Chanel, Armani, Max Mara - through innumerable outlets. You will have a fantastic popular China tours in Hong Kong.
Since the Chinese takeover, a highly efficient international airport has been built 18 miles away at Chek Lap Kok, which I wish I could pronounce without a stupid schoolboy-ish smirk.
One might have thought China's first priority would have been obliterating every last trace of colonial rule. But the island's street and place names still exude 19th century Britishness: Victoria Harbour, Connaught Road, Queen's Road Central, Repulse Bay, Stanley Market. For more about these place, you can check out Hong Kong travel guide.
The Star Ferry, plying between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, has its same Victorian termini with plank walkways like Margate Pier and iron turnstiles made in Lancashire.
Downtown Hong Kong, though, is a different storey (misspelling intentional). A brand-new city has taken shape, which glories in its glass and metal skyscrapers, and the riches they contain, just as New York used to do pre-9/11. Here, bankers aren't reviled, but looked up to in every sense. The showiest high-rises are the headquarters of international banks, none more so than Sir Norman Foster's creation for HSBC, which resembles a giant pink and grey jukebox.
Rather than the crusty old colonial Brits of yesteryear, there is now a huge international, and mostly young, expatriate population working in the ever-booming financial sector and enjoying one of the world's lowest tax rates.
Living space is at such a premium that even newish apartment buildings are routinely torn down and replaced by brand-new ones allowing even greater numbers of occupants to be crammed in.
'A flat will be advertised as being so many square feet,' one young British businessman told me. 'What you don't realise is that that includes your parking spot and your share of the communal pool.'
On the streets - with their smogmasked crowds, slimline trams and outsize public ashtrays - money doesn't just talk, it uses a loud-hailer. The old instant tailors and shirtmakers and cut-price electronics bazaars have given way to stores and malls selling every top European fashion label - Prada, Chanel, Armani, Max Mara - through innumerable outlets. You will have a fantastic popular China tours in Hong Kong.
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