Hong Kong, Part 2 – Victoria Peak and the Waterfront

On By StevenIn International Travel - Hong Kong

Author’s Note: This is one of five posts looking to the past, to my trip to Hong Kong in September of 2008. Some of the details may be a little fuzzy because it was twelve years ago.

The Peak Tram is a funicular that’s been running since 1888. It connects the lower parts of Hong Kong Island with the upper bits. We took it up to Victoria Peak.

The peak tram entrance.

I am delighted by Funiculars. They usually cover a very short physical distance, but their charm is in their verticality. The Peak Tram travels less than a mile, but it climbs over 1300 feet in that distance.

The peak tram cometh.

At the top, there’s an observation deck called Sky Terrace. Of course, I had to go see Victoria Peak from the top. It’s tall, and I love tall things. We have established this as a BlogFact™. It’s a shame it was so hazy that day.

The view from the Peak.

This Japanese restaurant at the top of Victoria Peak was the single most expensive meal I ate on the entire trip. This is where I had Fugu and a Kobe beef hamburger. A quick side note: I did a bunch of reading on this, and while Fugu neurotoxins are a painful and slow way to die, Fugu fatalities are not really all that common and most people with the bad luck to get an improperly prepared fish do recover.

After dinner, we took a taxi back down to the foot of the mountain, and then took the Star Ferry back to Tsim Sha Tsui.

Like the Peak Tram, the Star Ferry was first established in 1888. It goes across Victoria Harbor, bringing people between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon.

The Star Ferry is also a pretty great place to catch the Hong Kong Symphony of Light, a laser and light show set to music that involves most of the buildings along both sides of the waterfront. It runs at 8 pm every night. You can see some of the lasers in the picture above, but it’s better if you see it in motion. You can even sort of hear the music in this video someone uploaded to YouTube:

Last, but not least, there was some sort of paper lantern festival going on at the waterfront while we were there.

  • More paper lanterns.
    More paper lanterns.
  • And more paper lanterns.
    And more paper lanterns.
  • Paper lantern cranes.
    Paper lantern cranes.
  • A paper lantern dragonfly.
    A paper lantern dragonfly.
  • An enormous undersea paper lantern thingamajig.
    An enormous undersea paper lantern thingamajig.

On a different evening along the same waterfront, I checked out the Hong Kong Space Museum, which had some nifty exhibits including a moon walk simulation and a spacewalk simulation. After the museum, I walked along the “Avenue Of Stars” and enjoyed the great view of the Hong Kong skyline.

What’s your favorite tourist light show?

38/52 (and 17 of 30!)

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13 thoughts on “Hong Kong, Part 2 – Victoria Peak and the Waterfront”

  1. We had been to this Victoria Peak and when we went up on that day it was incredibly foggy because of which we didn’t get the city view.
    I remember this downtown view also. Me and my husband sat on the river bank and kept admiring the city lights 🙂

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  3. Paper lanterns are so much fun! I’m a kid about light shows, I like all of them. But the releasing of paper lanterns over the ocean is such a quiet and almost-somber affair here and so it stands out in my mind– in a good way.

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    1. I like them also. There was one night I was driving back home to my Orlando apartment and I saw several paper lanterns floating up, off the highway. I never figured out their point of origin and it was nowhere near the new year, so I never learned what they signified. To this day, I’ve always wondered.

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    1. This particular fugu was dried and prepared like a jerky, and it was not flavorful. It’s possible that another preparation would have been delicious, like sushi.

      I wasn’t really worried about the toxins because this was in a fairly high end restuarant. Fugu on the street would scare me, but in a pricey Japanese restaurant that gets throngs of tourists, I wasn’t at all concerned.

      Liked by 1 person

  6. Gotta be the lights and music on the underground boat at the Salzbergwerk in Bad Reichenhall. Not exactly Las Vegas but considering I had no idea what to expect on a tour of a salt mine, it was a delightful surprise. Just like the slide, wee!

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