• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

2 Herbalist Shops Walk south on Sutherland St to Ko Shing St, to browse the positively medieval-sounding goods on offer from the herbal-medicine traders.

3 Western Market At the end of Ko Shing St, re-enter Des Voeux Rd West and walk northeast. Continue along Connaught Rd West, where you’ll find several floors of market stalls occupying the attractive colonial building housing the Western Market (opposite).

4 Birds’ Nests, Ginseng & Funeral Offerings Shops At the corner of Morrison St, walk south past Wing Lok St and Bonham Strand, which are both lined with shops selling ginseng root and edible birds’ nests. Then turn right onto Queen’s Rd Central to the shops selling paper funeral offerings for the dead.

5 Leung Hing Chiu Chow Seafood Restaurant Hungry? Turn right onto Bonham Strand East then left onto Bonham Strand West for a quick Chiu Chow fix (Click here).

6 Pak Sing Ancestral Hall & Kwun Yam Temple Back on Possession St, take a left into Hollywood Rd and then right to ascend Pound Lane to where it meets Tai Ping Shan St, where you’ll spot two temples (opposite). Look to the right for Pak Sing Ancestral Hall and to the left for Kwun Yam Temple.

* * *

WALK FACTS

Start Kennedy Town tram (Sutherland St stop)

End Sheung Wan MTR station (entrance/exit B)

Distance 1.9km

Time One hour

Fuel stop Leung Hing Chiu Chow Seafood Restaurant

* * *

7 Hollywood Rd Turn left into Tai Ping Shan St, then left again to descend Upper Station St to the start of Hollywood Rd’s antique shops (see Click here). There’s a vast choice of curios and rare, mostly Chinese, treasures.

8 Man Mo Temple Continuing east on Hollywood Rd brings you to the Man Mo Temple ( Click here), one of the oldest in the territory and dedicated to the civil and martial gods Man Cheung and Kwan Yu.

9 Cat St Market Take a short hop to the left down Ladder St to Upper Lascar Row, home of the Cat St Market ( Click here), which is well stocked with Chinese memorabilia and inexpensive curios and gift items. Ladder St brings you back to Queen’s Rd Central. Cross the road and follow Hillier St to Bonham Strand. Due north is the Sheung Wan MTR station.

Return to beginning of chapter

CAUSEWAY BAY

Shopping Click here; Eating Click here; Drinking Click here; The Arts Click here; Sleeping Click here

If you want to experience the sheer mass of humanity Hong Kong is capable of containing on its narrow streets, visit Causeway Bay ( Map) on a weekend lunchtime when multitudes descend on the area to shop and eat.

One of Hong Kong’s top shopping areas, Causeway Bay is jammed with department stores, but it has plenty of attractions for non-shoppers too.

Known as Tung Lo Wan (Copper Gong Bay) in Cantonese, it was the site of a British settlement in the 1840s and was once an area of ‘godowns’ (a Hong Kong ‘business’ or pidgin English word for warehouses) and a well-protected harbour for fisherfolk and boatpeople.

The new Causeway Bay was built up from swamp and reclaimed land from the harbour. Jardine Matheson, one of Hong Kong’s largest háwng (major trading houses or companies), set up shop here, which explains why many of the streets in the district bear its name: Jardine’s Bazaar, Jardine’s Crescent and Yee Wo St (the name for Jardine Matheson in Cantonese).

Causeway Bay is a relatively small but densely packed district. Canal Rd is its border to the west and Victoria Park is the eastern limit. From the harbour and the typhoon shelter it runs south to Leighton Rd. Tin Hau, the site of Hong Kong Island’s most famous temple (erected in honour of the queen of heaven), is at the southeastern edge of Victoria Park.

NOONDAY GUN Map

221 Gloucester Rd; MTR Causeway Bay (exit D1)

Noel Coward made the so-called Noonday Gun famous with his satirical song ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ (1924), about colonials who braved the fierce heat of the midday sun while the local people sensibly remained indoors: ‘In Hong Kong/they strike a gong/And fire off a noonday gun/To reprimand each inmate/Who’s