Hong Kong buzzes 24/7 and any visitor quickly gets caught up in its manic energy. Regardless of the time you arrive, you’ll likely feel impelled to go out again as soon as you’ve checked in. Dynamic, insatiable, neon-lit and with giant video screens broadcasting the headlines, financial news and temperature around the clock, Hong Kong seethes with striving humanity, its development – around one of the world’s most spectacular deep harbours – driven wholly by trade. Not coincidentally, the shopping is outstanding. Hyper-modern luxury malls and department stores stocked with every international brand you can think of – Hong Kong loves the high life – flank teeming old streets dating back to 19th-century colonial days (Britain ceded Hong Kong back to China in 1997) where a reeking wet market packed with plastic buckets of squirming snakes, fish and eels is likely to face a couple of tailors’ shops, a mysterious Chinese pharmacy and a cool patisserie.
Prices are not the bargain they were in the 1980s, where there was nowhere better, worldwide, to shop for electronics. But they’re lower than in Shanghai and Tokyo. The great thing about a trip to the former colony (best undertaken between November and March, when there’s a crispness in the air and the weather sparkles) is this. When you’re finally dressed, shod, accessorised and sated with all those fashion labels; when you’ve made a few serendipitous finds in the antique stores along Hollywood Road (Mao-era posters, opium-den couches, kitsch Chinoiserie) and browsed the often luminously clever contemporary local art in artists’ studios or the galleries that reflect Hong Kong’s new status as Asia’s art hub (with its own annual Art Basel event), it is exhilaratingly easy to do something else entirely. Besides eating out, that is. Hong Kong’s restaurant scene is phenomenal.
You can go wild on the roller coasters at Ocean Park. Join the throng at the floodlit city-centre race-course at Happy Valley to witness the Chinese obsession with gambling in crazed and manic action (every Wednesday night from September to June, and be warned, after the third or fourth race that maniac screaming encouragement may well be you). Mooch around some of the outstanding museums (the Maritime Museum is the best).
And then you can escape from the densely populated, super-high-rise, ultra-crowded centre – Central on hilly Hong Kong island and, across the harbour, Tsim Sha Tsui on flat Kowloon, a tip of mainland China. Unexpectedly, much of Hong Kong’s 1,190 kilometres is spread over 200 green, hilly and mostly empty little islands. Although Lantau is the largest (Hong Kong Island is second largest) and home to Hong Kong airport (regularly named best in the world), inland, its empty rolling hills, where water buffalo graze, may put you in the mind of rural Thailand. A 35-minute ferry or hovercraft ride will bring you to somewhere like Sharp Island, in the New Territories – home to lovely beaches and the parrot sanctuary/monkey haven/butterfly aviary that is the Kadoorie Farm & Botanic Garden, a conservation and animal rescue centre, and where there’s little more to buy than lunch in the sunshine.
Luxury shopping
No question about which is the best: it's the IFC or International Finance Centre mall (www.ifc.com.hk) in Central, a few hundred yards from that pulsating waterfront next to the Four Seasons. This high-rise gleaming behemoth houses virtually all the Bond Street/Champs Élysées/Fifth Avenue top and mid-level luxury brands, from Aesop, Apple, Chloé and Armani, to Zara J Crew, Sandro and Tiffany & Co. Free wheelchair and stroller hire plus a liberal sprinkling of patisseries and familiar pizza, burger and salad chains add to the appeal. Be warned, though: your status as honoured customer will shrivel around Chinese New Year (Thursday, February 19 in 2015), when sales assistants suddenly speak only Cantonese and Mandarin and all eyes are on the high-spending mainlanders who surge over the border to spend their way through the biggest holiday in the Chinese calendar (prices are around 20 per cent lower in Hong Kong than in mainland China). The next best mall after IFC is Pacific Place (www.pacificplace.com.hk), also in Central. The massive Harbour City, across the harbour in Kowloon, by the Star Ferry terminal, is also worth investigating. No need to bother with any of the others. Among luxury stores, a big name to check out is still Joyce, with fashion and beauty stores and galleries dotted across Hong Kong (www.joyce.com). And in Causeway Bay, where Hong Kong's most insatiable shoppers are still thronging the streets at 9pm, the giant 12-storey Japanese department store Sogo is pretty compelling. Next door, Island Beverly Center is home to all sorts of novel Korean and Japanese brands and, nearby, the 20-store Windsor House is devoted solely to children's clothes and toys. Around Gough Street and Gage Street is now the area to find quirky one-off stores, for fashion,The Collectives, for furnishings, General Store.For east meets west – fashion in the store, art in the salon/restaurant Duddell's, there's Shanghai Tang. The Luxe City Guide is hot on what's cool (luxecityguides.com).
Street markets
Out with the old and in with the new is the way things go in Hong Kong, primarily because of the massive cost of real estate. The sole remaining night market is Temple Street, on Kowloon (www.temple-street-night-market.hk). A lot of fun after dark with its fortune tellers, face-readers, open-air Cantonese opera and sizzling food stalls, it is worth an evening's browse just for the people-watching. By day, Mong Kok's Bird Market – with old men in vests clustered around the cages – and nearby Flower Market provide photogenic browsing. The teeming streets around these markets are a good source of quirky buys – the pharmacies, in particular. How about straps to wrap around a daughter or niece's shoulders to force her to maintain good posture, for instance (how she will thank you for that).
Tailors
Hong Kong is full of tailors and famous for the 24-hour suit. As most of the tailors appear to be still in the grip of an ongoing love affair with the broad-shouldered New York gangster look, the results are pretty terrible. But three entirely reliable tailors are WW Chan for truly exquisite suits (www.wwchan.com), David's Shirts for more than 20 different styles of cuffs and collars (davidsshirts.com) and the famous Sam's Tailor (samstailor.com). Everyone from David Bowie and Richard Gere to Michael Jackson and Bill Clinton have been to Sam's.
Getting around
If you're used to jumping into a cab, Hong Kong is the place to abandon the habit. Not because cabs are expensive – they're not – but because the former colony has one of the best public transport systems in the world – far-reaching, clean and inexpensive. Wherever you're going, it will be quicker to go down into the MTR subway system, because daytime traffic is horrendous. Get an Octopus card (www.octopus.com.hk) from any MTR station on arrival; it's valid on all the trains and buses, including the old trams that have been clanking along Conduit Street in Central since 1904. Cabbing it by night is fun, though, because the place looks so spectacular, all lit up.
After the flight to Hong Kong, it's blissfully cosseting to walk off the skyway, see a sign with your name on it, and get whisked off on a buggy to immigration, baggage collection and then into the open doors of a limo. Worldwide Flight Services (www.worldwideflight.com.hk) are good, charging about HK$1,437 (Dh681) to meet and greet a family of four and an extra HK$625 (Dh296) for a limo. On the way back, though, it's quicker and much cheaper to check-in in the city, at the Airport Express desk on the ground floor of the IFC Mall, and then get the train to the airport. If you use the Airport Express train both ways, though, you get that, plus three days' use of all public transport for about HK$287 (Dh136) each. Ferries to Lanyau and other outlying islands charge minimally, so even the 35-minute trip out to car-less Cheung Chau for a meal on the waterfront costs only about HK$50 (Dh23). Crossing the harbour on the famous Star Ferry – plying this most thrilling of transfers since 1888 – costs HK$4 (Dh1.9).
Where to stay
As Hong Kong is renowned for its luxury hotels, you could choose any of the big names and be happy – food-and service-wise. But as far as location goes, it's best to avoid flat Kowloon, the equivalent of Brooklyn, even though hotels there (such as the inimitable old Peninsula) have the best views, looking across to mountainous Hong Kong Island. Stay in the heart of the action in Central, on Hong Kong side, near the Central Piers terminals for the Star Ferry and services to the outlying islands. Central's stand-out hotel – even better than the Mandarin – is the Four Seasons, overlooking the harbour and The Peak. It is so close to the IFC mall that an escalator from the lobby takes you right into the floor housing Bulgari, Prada et al, on top of a subway station. A five-minute walk to Central Piers, this is really outstanding, with a spectacular sixth-floor spa and pool terrace overlooking the harbour, two restaurants with three Michelin stars each, including the spectacular Lung King Heen, and large suites and bathrooms. Rooms cost from HK$5,225 (Dh2,476) (www.fourseasons.com, 00852 3196 8888).
Ten minutes away by foot (the skyway system across Central is ingenious), and set on a hillside in Central next to Hong Kong Park (lovely for an early morning wander), the Conrad Hong Kong is particularly good for families. Stay above the 40th floor and you will be able to look at the harbour without lifting your head from the pillow. The kindly concierge here, Simpson, outdoes himself in family-friendly recommendations, and there's something for even the fussiest of eaters at the Italian restaurant, Nicholini's. An elevator takes you down into the Pacific Place mall and an MTR station. Rooms from about HK$3,437 (Dh1,628) (www.conradhotels.com, 00852 2521 3838).
Getting there
Direct return flights from Dubai with Emirates (www.emirates.com) from Dh 2,935 and Etihad (www.etihad.com) from Dh2,765 return, including taxes. The flight takes eight hours.
