Hong Kong and Macau_ City Guide (Lonely Planet, 14th Edition) - Andrew Stone [56]
The seventh gallery houses the Xubaizhi collection of painting and calligraphy. Highlights include some exquisite ceramics in the Chinese Antiques Gallery; the Historical Pictures Gallery, with its 18th- and 19th-century Western-style paintings of Macau, Hong Kong and Guangzhou; and the Gallery of Chinese Fine Art, which combines contemporary Chinese art and 20th-century collections of painting and calligraphy from Guangdong. Audio guides are available for $10, and there are free English-language tours at 11am Tuesday to Sunday.
When your feet get tired, take a seat in the hallway and enjoy the harbour views, or head for the Museum Café ( 2370 3860; 10am-9pm Fri-Wed). The Museum Bookshop ( 2732 2088; 10am-6.30pm Sun-Fri, 10am-8pm Sat) sells a wide range of books, prints and cards. Salisbury Gardens, which leads to the museum entrance, is lined with sculptures by contemporary Hong Kong sculptors. To reach the museum from the Tsim Sha Tsui MTR station, take exit E and walk south down Nathan Rd.
FORMER KCR CLOCK TOWER Map
Tsim Sha Tsui Public Pier; Star Ferry
Immediately east of Star Ferry pier, this 44m-high clock tower (1915) was once part of the southern terminus of the Kowloon-Canton Railway (KCR). Operations moved to the modern train station at Hung Hom to the northeast in late 1975. The station was demolished in 1978, though you can see a scale model of what it looked like at the Hong Kong Railway Museum ( Click here) in Tai Po in the New Territories.
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EIGHT PEAKS, NINE DRAGONS
The name ‘Kowloon’ is thought to have originated when the last emperor of the Song dynasty passed through the area during his flight from the Mongols in the late 13th century (see Click here). He is said to have counted eight peaks on the peninsula and concluded that there must therefore be eight dragons there. But the young emperor was reminded that with him present, there were actually nine dragons. Kowloon is thus derived from the Cantonese words gáu, meaning ‘nine’, and lng, meaning ‘dragon’.
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HONG KONG CULTURAL CENTRE Map
2734 2009; www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/CulturalService/HKCC; 10 Salisbury Rd; 9am-11pm; Star Ferry
On the one hand there are those who say that the virtually windowless, ski-jump-shaped Cultural Centre clad in pink ceramic tiles is an aesthetic horror. On the other hand…no, actually, come to think of it there is no other hand. By any measure it is an eyesore.
Despite being arguably the territory’s most derided landmark, making woeful use of its spectacular location (and being compared with everything from a cheaply tiled public toilet to a roadside petrol station), inside it is a world-class venue containing a 2085-seat concert hall, a Grand Theatre that seats 1750, a studio theatre for up to 535, rehearsal studios and an impressive foyer. The concert hall even has a Rieger Orgelbau pipe organ (with 8000 pipes and 93 stops), one of the largest in the world.
On the building’s south side is the beginning of a viewing platform from where you can admire Victoria Harbour and the skyline of Central and gain access to the Tsim Sha Tsui East Promenade and Avenue of the Stars ( Click here).
NATHAN ROAD Map
MTR Tsim Sha Tsui
Kowloon’s ‘Golden Mile’ may sound romantic, but in truth its main thoroughfare (named after former Sir Matthew Nathan) is a bit of a traffic- and pedestrian-choked scrum of electronics shops and tenement blocks. It is nonetheless an iconic Hong Kong scene stacked with seedy guesthouses awkwardly rubbing shoulders with top-end hotels, touts selling ‘copy’ watches and tailors plying their trade on street corners. If that makes it sound edgy, in reality it is completely safe – which is just as well since you won’t be able to avoid criss-crossing it if you spend any time in the area.