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Built in 1901 by Hotchkiss of Portsmouth, this recoil-mounted 3lb cannon is one of the few vestiges of the colonial past in Causeway Bay and is its best-known landmark. The original six-pounder was lost during WWII; its replacement was deemed too noisy and was exchanged for the current gun in 1961. The gun stands in a small garden opposite the Excelsior Hotel on Gloucester Rd – the first plot of land to be sold by public auction in Hong Kong (1841) –and is fired at noon every day. Eight bells are then sounded, signalling the end of the forenoon watch. The gun also welcomes the New Year at midnight on 31 December.

Exactly how this tradition started remains a mystery. Some people say that Jardine Matheson fired the gun without permission to bid farewell to a departing managing director or to welcome one of its incoming ships. The authorities were so enraged by the company’s insolence that, as punishment, Jardine’s was ordered to fire the gun every day. A more prosaic explanation is that, as at many ports around the world (including London), a gun was fired at noon daily so that ships’ clocks – crucial for establishing longitude and east-west distances at sea – could be set accurately.

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TRANSPORT – CAUSEWAY BAY

Bus From Admiralty and Central, buses 5, 5B and 26 stop along Yee Wo St.

Green Minibus Bus 40 from Stanley calls along Tang Lung St and Yee Woo St.

MTR Causeway Bay and Tin Hau stations are on the Central line.

Tram These run along Hennessy Rd and Yee Wo St to Central and Shau Kei Wan; along Percival St to Happy Valley; along Wong Nai Chung Rd to Causeway Bay, Central, Kennedy Town and Shau Kei Wan.

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CAUSEWAY BAY

The Noonday Gun is accessible via a tunnel through the basement car park in the World Trade Centre, just west of the Excelsior Hotel. From the taxi rank in front of the hotel, look west for the door marked ‘Car Park Shroff, Marina Club & Noon Gun’. It’s open from 7am to midnight daily.

VICTORIA PARK Map

2890 5824; www.lcsd.gov.hk/en/ls_park.php; Causeway Rd; free admission; MTR Causeway Bay & Tin Hau

At 17 hectares, Victoria Park is the biggest patch of public greenery on Hong Kong Island and is a popular place to escape to. The best time to stroll around is in the morning during the week, when it becomes a forest of people practising the slow-motion choreography of t’ai chi. At the weekend they are joined by Indonesian amahs, who prefer it to Central (see the boxed text).

Between April and November you can take a dip in the swimming pool ( 2570 4682; adult/child 3-13 & senior over 60 $19/9; 6.30am-10pm with 1hr closure at noon & 5pm Apr-Oct, 6.30am-noon Nov). The park becomes a flower market a few days before the Chinese New Year and is the site of the Hong Kong Flower Show in March. It’s also worth a visit during the Mid-Autumn Festival (Click here), when people turn out en masse carrying lanterns.

CAUSEWAY BAY TYPHOON SHELTER Map

off Hung Hing Rd, Causeway Bay

Not so long ago the waterfront in Causeway Bay used to be a mass of junks and sampans huddling in the typhoon shelter for protection, but these days it’s nearly all yachts. The land jutting out to the west is Kellett Island, which has been a misnomer ever since a causeway connected it to the mainland in 1956, and further land reclamation turned it into a peninsula. It is home to the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club ( 2832 2817), which retains its ‘Royal’ moniker in English only.

TIN HAU TEMPLE Map

2508 1234; 10 Tin Hau Temple Rd; 7am-5pm; MTR Tin Hau (exit B)

Southeast of Victoria Park, Hong Kong Island’s most famous Tin Hau temple is relatively small and dwarfed by surrounding high-rises. Before reclamation, this temple dedicated to the patroness of seafarers stood on the waterfront. It has been a place of worship for three centuries, though the current structure is only about 200 years old. The temple bell dates from 1747, and the central shrine contains an effigy of Tin Hau with