Hong Kong trip

2 weeks is a lot for hong kong. stanley is mostly a tourist open air shopping area, you can get trinkets and other stuff meant for tourists to buy. Mongkok markets are much more local. it really depends on what you like to do. Hong Kong has good food of all sorts, nice nightlife, plenty of culture. I suggest hiking dragon's back trail, Yum cha atvictoria seafoodin citic tower, high tea at the peninsula, party in Lan Kwai Fong on a friday or saturday (expect to pay 10 USD per drink), or troll Wan Chai and see go go girls or drunken US armed forces personnel. get drinks atsevvafor the view. Macau can be fun, but gambling is expensive. The black jack tables start at 25 USD per hand at the venetian. If you find yourself hungry in macau, grab a cab toristorante litoralfor portugese, or you can try macanese food atferndando's. head totakeout comedyin soho for some laughs.

If you have any questions feel free to ask. Been here 10 years now.

Agree 2 weeks is a long time for HK. Hopefully you're working there or something, you will run out of tourist stuff. Can pop over to Shenzhen or Zhuhai in China if visa is not an issue.

Anyway - here's what I usually suggest for visitors:

Shopping

(1) Street / Night markets ? Ladies? Market (Tung Choi St., near MTR Mongkok station) and Temple Street Night Market (Temple St., near MTR Jordan Station). - typical tourist junk, worth going through once.
(2) Mansions on Nathan Rd. - visit if you want to see some very expensive tenements. Lots of foreigners, knick knacks, etc... You will feel like the whole city can burn down in a few minutes.
(3) Malls ? IFC mall in Central, Elements in TST. Tons of malls everywhere.
(4) Cat Street - HK Island. All the old antiques and souvenirs you can shake a stick at. Can be pricey though.
(5) Causeway Bay - just more mindless shopping.

Victoria Peak- nice views. Take the tram up.

Star Ferry / Victoria Harbour? worth doing once, it's a quick ride but very cheap. After you do it once, probably just take MTR for future trips across the harbor.

Big Buddha? Take MTR to Tung Chung and a bus (cheap) or tram (straight up). There's a whole tourist village there too.

Avenue of the Stars? like the HK version of the Hollywood walk, only visit if you can tell Asians apart. You won't know most of them otherwise.

Kowloon Park? park in Kowloon, TST. There are lot of Tai Chi practicitioners here.

Fortune Tellers? There's a lot of them near temple street. Some speak English. It's all bullshit but can see how they try to make up stuff.

Mid-levels escalator? something to see if you?re going to be near LKF and/or Soho. It?s the world?s largest outdoor escalator system.

Temples? too many to list, visit whatever you come across. I like the one in Central - Man Mo?

Theme parks? There's a Disneyland and Ocean Park.

Drinking- go to Lan Kwai Fong for drinking. Lots of foreigners here. probably easiest place to pick up a local. Wan Chai has a lot of Filipinas, lots of them "working".

Some fancy bars ?
(1) Felix at the Peninsula Hotel ? 28/F.
(2) Ozone at the Ritz Carlton. 118/F.
(3) M Bar at the Mandarin Oriental ? 25/F.


MACAU - worth a day trip. Take the Turbojet hydrofoil across - takes about an hour. There are ferry terminals on HK Island (big one) or Kowloon (smaller).

(1) Ruins of St Paul's Cathedral and the alleys leading up to it are teeming with people
(2) Senado Sq. is the center of town
(3) Casinos - Lisboa/Grand Lisboa are the "Chinese" casinos. Tacky tacky but worth a visit. The Wynn is a copy of the Wynn in Vegas. MGM is kinda boring. On the other island (Taipan) there are some nice casinos like the Venetian. The whole Cotai strip is huge but a lot of it still under development.
(4) Eat some portuguese style egg tarts. Lord Stow or margaret's are the best.
(5) a group tour might be the simplest option.

Need some ktv or sauna recommendations?

Both places are interesting and suitable for journey. You will spend great time in both places if you have company then your tour would be awesome. Attractive points, places, silent features make you fresh and reduce boring.

wizarddeath_sl said:

It is a company trip, here for my last week now. First week sucked ass cause I worked 70+ hours over 5 days, so sleep schedule was super weird.

However, meet a local who was back on business as well, and she took me out and about. Visited Budda, victoria peak, LKF(so awesome!), Mong kok.

Everyone is gone now from work, and Im stuck doing shit work for a week. How are the saunas and stuff? Being from the US, just weird to hear places just having Saunas and charging for them if they aren't a gym? I also need to go see the mid level escalator things.

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Many saunas in Hong Kong and virtually all of them in Macau are fronts for fancy brothels full of mainland Chinese hookers. If it's like US$250 dollars for sauna access, you'll know why.

If you want a "clean" massage/sauna, go to a unisex one at a nice hotel or something.

wizarddeath_sl said:

Also tell me more about these Saunas ....

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There are whole boards/websites, etc... set up to discuss this topic and I don't think this board wants to be one of those. Just google "macau sauna" and it'll go into all the details...

wizarddeath_sl said:

Hmm must be a high class place, and not seedy places then not to be discussed on FoH boards ~

Any other must see sights? Been using trip advisors.

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High class and seedy are not mutually exclusive in Asia, haha

If you've visited the stuff people have listed here, then I think you've seen most of the "must see" stuff in that area, aside from Macau. You can start doing more local stuff, mainly discovering interesting places to eat and shop. You can pick up mah jong? Join a wing chun class? Try tai chi?

If you have another weekend, Taiwan is an hour away. Taipei definitely worth a weekend.

Edit: there are a few "proper" saunas too I think. They're not that different from a full service Korean spa or some of the commercial Japanese places. Basically you pay an entrance fee and get 12 to 24 hour access to the facilities (you can stay that long but cannot leave and go back). This usually includes some buffet food and drinks. You also get access to the jacuzzi, hot pools, cold pools, etc... Some places make you go in the buff, others provide shorts. Then there's a resting area where you can watch tv, read a book and order massages and grooming services like manicure, pedicure, etc... , which usually are a la carte. You can order a "massage" and that's where the clean and sleazy places diverge, but the rest of it is pretty similar.

wizarddeath_sl said:

When you say an hour away, do you mean a flight? How much are they normally? I am all about passport stamps.....

Would you rate Taiwan over Macau? I'd love to go somewhere else than hang in HK.

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Yes, by flight. It's actually like an hour and 15 minutes, so work in some airport time too (use the airport express check-in at central - it's awesome).

I've seen flights as cheap as 900 HKD round trip, but really depends on your luck when you look for tickets. If you're serious about it, check out dragonair - budget airline from HK.

If you have time to spend, then Taiwan. if just a day and not too much hassle, then do Macau.

Macau is very small, so easy to fit it all in in a single day pretty much. You'll mostly be seeing some casinos, seeing town square, a cathedral, temple or two and that's it. Maybe eat some nice food also. A day trip is sufficient to see it all. Macau is also super "touristy" - almost everything is catered towards mainland chinese tourists and gamblers. There's a bit of the old Macau culture/heart left but it's off the beaten path, down small alley markets, sleepy fishing areas, etc...

Taiwan is bigger, but if just a weekend, then probably only enough time to see Taipei. Taipei has awesome night markets, a pretty busy "young people" area at ximending, decent clubbing scene (not as good as LKF imo), attractions like Taipei 101... it's harder to get around only using English than HK, but most signage has english. If you like greasy food and pork products the night markets are pretty good. If you're an obvious foreigner it's fairly easy to chat up locals as many want to practice english.

Try some Asian ktv? Taipei is fun. If you need a list of spots just pm me.

Just a note for anyone not familiar - KTV (Karaoke) in asia can also either be sleazy or family oriented... gotta be careful

"Family" ktv is for friends/family, etc... and a bit different from American karaoke. You rent a little room where you can embarrass yourselves in front of your loved ones - they usually serve some food and drinks. Costs are not super cheap but reasonable. You'd never come to this alone - will probably have some local friends familiar to book this.

"KTV" that's sleazy usually involves buying at least one bottle of overpriced liquor to get access to a room. There are "mamasans" that bring a lineup of KTV girls out for you to choose as "companions" - usually to sing and chat with you, but depending on the place, sometimes a lot more. You'll generally have to tip a bunch of people, the girl, the mamasan, the waiters, etc... Specifics vary by country and place, but that's the general gist of it. If you want to go, should probably find a local or someone that speaks local language and grab a few more guys, as the cost can be pretty high.

HK is a pretty fun place to hang out for 1-2 weeks if you know people but holy fuck does it start to get hot and humid during the summer period. I would advise against going in the months of June - August. Temps reach high 30s coupled with poor air quality means that you don't want to be outdoors for any long periods of time.

Massive nightlife choices with Mongkok, Tsim Sha Tsui and Yau Ma Tei being most popular and lots of shopping centres since land and property is so absurdly expensive in HK (up there as the most expensive place to live in theworld).

2 of my closest friends live in HK and when I go to visit them, they just take me out to hang out. Never been to these massage parlours in HK because why go to expensive and questionable parlours in HK when you can hop across the border and go to ones in Shenzhen as they are cheaper and better service? Last time I went (non sleazy) it was like $150-$200 or something like that for like a 2hr back massage. It was fucking brilliant. It is pretty convenient to get a 1 day visa to get into China and the underground tube service links HK directly to China now.

Macau is a good place to hang out for a day or two. Lots of casinos, places to eat, brothels there. What's not to like?

Lots of tourists and foreigners tend to hang out at Lan Kwai Fong as are a ton of bars, clubs and restaurants there. Might want to check that place out but prices will be more expensive there than comparable places elsewhere in HK.

wizarddeath_sl said:

. I told them I want to goto Wanchei Sunday as this is my last trip for a bit, and want to see how bad it gets when the housemaids come out

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You can't miss the maids - they're pretty much everywhere on Sunday. Walk along any of the elevated walkways near IFC and you'll see literal tent cities that spring up. Some of the poorer ones just get boxes out and erect little barriers around themselves, kinda like what a 6 year old might do playing with boxes. They also hang out at the parks and hold picnics. Lots of the Filipino ones around churches too. It's pretty shocking if you've never seen it before.

MrBelding_sl said:

You can't miss the maids - they're pretty much everywhere on Sunday. Walk along any of the elevated walkways near IFC and you'll see literal tent cities that spring up. Some of the poorer ones just get boxes out and erect little barriers around themselves, kinda like what a 6 year old might do playing with boxes. They also hang out at the parks and hold picnics. Lots of the Filipino ones around churches too. It's pretty shocking if you've never seen it before.

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they like to hang out near the war memorial. Its a good time to get good Filipino food Tagalog is a plus.