Story & photos by Dinna Chan Vasquez
FOR many Filipinos, Hong Kong is the first overseas destination. Less than two hours away by plane, Hong Kong is indeed ideal with its intriguing combination of modernity and tradition. You can have lunch in the poshest places which have those coveted Michelin stars, and also enjoy an equally good meal on the street (minus the ambience of course). You can shop at any of Hong Kong’s air-conditioned malls or be more adventurous and shop at the night market. Indoors or outdoors, high-end or bargain, and high or low, the experiences that Hong Kong offers are definitely unique and unforgettable.
And these days, it is probably faster to fly to Hong Kong from Manila that to get to Makati from Quezon City. Cathay Pacific, which flies to Hong Kong from Manila several times a day, recently invited a group of lifestyle journalists for a familiarization tour of the former British colony.
We arrived on a Monday afternoon and checked in at the Marco Polo Hongkong Hotel, along Canton Road in Tsim Sha Tsui. Despite the lateness, we were able to have lunch at Cheesecake Factory as the hotel is within Harbour City, then stop by several beauty counters and stores within the mall, and have dinner at Marco Polo’s Italian restaurant Cucina.
Marco Polo Hongkong Hotel has 665 guest rooms and suites. The best part about staying there is that it’s right in the thick of Hong Kong’s shopping, dining and sightseeing destinations.
The hotel is connected to Harbour City via Lane Crawford (where Asia’s first Charlotte Tilbury store is located). Each of the rooms has a Handy smartphone you can take with you while exploring and there’s complimentary Wi-Fi while you’re inside the hotel. If you’re in a Continental Club floor, you have access to all-day buffets at the Canton Lounge, including its well-reviewed happy hour.
Oh, and the views from the rooms are amazing.
HEXA AND PAPER MOON
THESE restaurants with a view are newly opened at Harbour City’s Observatory Deck at the Ocean Terminal. Paper Moon is a casual Italian restaurant perfect for lunch with the ladies. Hexa is a modern Cantonese restaurant with innovative cocktails and dishes. The most memorable dishes were pan-seared dried golden oysters with longan honey and Yangzhou fried rice that didn’t have any rice but instead used Puntalette pasta.
TIMES SQUARE
TIMES Square at Causeway Bay has over 230 brands spread across 16 floors. There is also a Lane Crawford on the ground floor. A must-visit is the Lego Certified Store, which spans over 4,000 square feet. The store has a 70,000-brick mosaic wall of Hong Kong foods and a digital play table where kids can hold up a boxed set to a scanner that will show an animation of what the toy will look like once it is built.
Dining options at Times Square include The Food Forum, which has a choice different popular restaurants offering regional specialties and Western concepts.
FORBIDDEN DUCK
FORBIDDEN Duck at Times Square is the restaurant of Chef Alvin Leung. We had Peking duck, the restaurant’s specialty, cooked three ways but we also enjoyed other delicious sweet and savory dishes, such as a fried salt and pepper tofu, vegetarian dimsum, fish with abalone and lobster with noodles. For dessert, the restaurant served Leung’s take on the classic egg tart. The difference is that Forbidden Duck’s egg tart, which looks like a cookie shot, has pomelo in the egg custard.
MADAME TUSSAUDS
A TRIP to visit Madame Tussauds is worth it because it is at The Victoria Peak, one of Hong Kong’s most visited places, which is a great spot for taking pictures. Tip: Buying tickets to Madame Tussauds + Peak Tram is a good way to shorten waiting time and skip the line for riding the tram. The Peak Tram is the best way getting to Madame Tussauds. However, it is usually very crowded, especially during weekends, so the combo tickets are good buys. Madame Tussauds Hong Kong separates the wax figures into 10 different interactive themes, zones and areas in different floors. Celebrity wax figures can be found at Hong Kong Glamour, Royal Family, Historical and National Heroes, World Premiere, Kung Fu Zone, K-Wave Zone, The Champions, Music Icons and the new Yayoi Kusama Gallery. The most popular zones are Hong Kong Glamour and K-Waze.
SHAM SHUI PO
YOU can also opt to take less-popular tours like the one in Sham Shui Po, where we were taken to the area’s more gentrified places. Sham Shui Po is one of Hong Kong’s poorest districts. Tours in the area are quite trendy for hipsters and young people because of authenticity but personally, I am not the type to “live like a local.” My belief is that as a tourist, one must be respectful and nonintrusive, but that’s just my opinion. Anyway, what I saw of Sham Shui Po—a bag store, a tofu restaurant, a coffee shop, some galleries and a leather workshop—was nice and interesting. While walking, I spotted stores selling fabrics, buttons, beads and sequins and those seemed worth checking out, too.
CATHAY PACIFIC’S AIRPORT LOUNGES
IF you’re flying via Cathay Pacific, you need to check out their first class/business class lounges at the Hong Kong International Airport. The flagship lounge is The Wing on Level 7, which is 1,697 square meters and features a luxury shower suite with Aesop amenities. The Cabin is a 1,339-sq-m lounger near Gate 23 with high-speed Wi-Fi And a video conference suite. The Pier on Level 6 near Terminal 65 features The Retreat, Cathay Pacific’s in-house spa. The Bridge on Level 5 near Gate 35 has The Bakery and The Bistro. The newest lounge is The Deck near Gate 16 in Terminal 1. The Deck’s highlight is The Terrace, an open ceiling veranda that gives passengers panoramic views of the airport’s apron, taxi-ways and northern runway. My favorite Cathay Pacific lounges are those with The Noodle Bar (The Wing and The Deck). In Hong Kong check out the lounges with The Noodle Bar and don’t forget to try the dandanmen noodles.