[Slug: is-hong-kong-worth-visiting]
[Meta title: Is Hong Kong Worth Visiting? A Local’s Honest Take]
[Meta description: Wondering if Hong Kong is still worth visiting? A local reflects on food, culture, and why the city remains unforgettable, if you know where to look.]
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By Elsie Leung\ Writes from memory, lunch tables, and old Hong Kong streets.
People ask me this question more often now. Friends from overseas, family who moved away to places like New York, even neighbors who wonder if their city is the same place they grew up loving. Is Hong Kong worth visiting these days? The question hangs in WhatsApp messages, in careful phone calls, in the spaces between what we used to say and what we say now.
I've lived in Kowloon for forty-three years. I've watched my neighborhood change from a collection of low-rise buildings where everyone knew each other's washing day schedule to towering buildings where I sometimes don't recognize the shop fronts. But every morning, I still walk the same route to the wet market, still hear the same mix of Cantonese and Mandarin and English bouncing off the walls, still smell the same blend of exhaust and steamed buns and yesterday's rain.
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The truth is, Hong Kong has always been changing. When I was small, my grandmother would point to construction sites and shake her head about progress. When I became a mother, I did the same thing. Change is what this city does, it's written into our DNA, carved into Victoria Harbor, pressed into our Octopus cards. What matters isn't whether Hong Kong is the same place it was five years ago or fifty years ago. What matters is whether it's still Hong Kong.
And it is. In ways that might surprise you, in ways that definitely surprise me, it absolutely still is.
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The cha chaan teng on my corner still serves milk tea that tastes like childhood, still has the same cracked formica tables where office workers argue about football scores and elderly uncles read newspapers with magnifying glasses. The woman who makes my morning coffee still remembers that I take it with condensed milk, no sugar. The rhythms of daily life, the morning rush to Central, the evening crush on the MTR, the weekend pilgrimage to dim sum, these haven't changed.
Victoria Peak remains what it has always been: the place where Hong Kong makes sense. Not because of the view, though the view still stops conversations mid-sentence. But because standing up there, looking down at this impossible city built on reclaimed land and determination, you understand something essential about this place. We've always been improbable. We've always been making it up as we go along. What makes Hong Kong special is exactly this, the way we turned impossibility into identity.
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I take the Peak Tram with my sister every few months, usually on a Sunday when the tourists thin out and we can hear ourselves think. She moved to Vancouver fifteen years ago, but when she visits, this is always our first stop. Not because we need to see the skyline, we can see it from our kitchen windows. But because something about being up there reminds us why we fell in love with this city in the first place.
The Star Ferry still crosses Victoria Harbour every few minutes, still costs less than a cup of coffee, still makes the crossing between Tsim Sha Tsui and Central feel like a small adventure. I've been taking this ferry for decades, and I still choose the outdoor deck when the weather cooperates. There's something about watching Hong Kong Island approach from the water that never gets old.
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Temple Street Night Market still comes alive after dark, though it's changed. Fewer fortune tellers, more phone case vendors. But the energy is the same. That particular Hong Kong mix of commerce and chaos, of people from everywhere in the world bumping into each other and somehow making it work. The street food still sizzles, the neon lights still reflect off the pavement when it rains, the elderly men still play xiangqi under the streetlights.
Visit Hong Kong now and you'll find a city that wears its complexity openly. The shopping centre districts in Central are shinier than ever, packed with brands that didn't exist when I was young. But walk ten minutes in any direction and you'll find streets that could be from thirty years ago, where the shops spill onto the sidewalks and the buildings lean into each other like old friends sharing secrets. Hong Kong boasts this remarkable ability to contain contradictions. Ancient temples beside modern shopping centers, traditional markets next to international financial towers. The main attractions draw millions, but the real magic lives in the spaces between them.
The skyline and harbor views that define Hong Kong remain as stunning as ever, though the city's character now reveals itself more in the quiet moments between the famous sights.
My mother used to say that you could measure Hong Kong's health by its food scene. Not the fancy restaurants (though we have those now in abundance) but the neighborhood places where people eat the same delicious food their grandparents ate, where recipes get passed down through generations of cooks who never wrote anything down. These places serve the popular dishes that have made our city a culinary capital of Asia.
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Dim sum is still a weekend ritual, still a way families mark time together. The tea houses are busier now, fuller of visitors taking photos of har gow and siu mai. But at seven in the morning, before the crowds arrive, these places still belong to the regulars. The elderly couples who've been coming for twenty years, the business partners who've been meeting over steamed buns since before email existed, the families who reserve the same table every Sunday.
I have a nephew who works in tech, makes more money than I ever dreamed of, eats at restaurants that require reservations booked weeks in advance. But every Sunday, he still comes to dim sum with us. Still orders the same dishes he's been ordering since he was five. Still uses his Octopus card to pay at the tea house down the street from where he grew up.
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The real food story of Hong Kong isn't just dim sum, though dim sum matters. It's the char siu rice that costs thirty dollars at a place with no name, where the cook has been making barbecued pork the same way for fifteen years. It's the fresh seafood markets in Aberdeen, where you can point to a fish swimming in a tank and eat it twenty minutes later. It's the late-night noodle shops in Wan Chai that stay open until three in the morning, feeding shift workers and insomniacs and people who just need a bowl of something warm. It's the way delicious food becomes a bridge between cultures, connecting visitors from India, major cities across Asia, and the rest of the world.
The Octopus card makes eating your way through the city effortless. Tap and go, from street stalls to shopping center food courts to the ferry pier snack shops. No need to carry cash, no need to calculate exchange rates. Just tap your card and follow your nose.
Hong Kong's food culture remains deeply authentic, with neighborhood eateries and dim sum traditions thriving alongside international dining scenes.
When I visit Po Lin Monastery on Lantau Island, it feels like stepping into another world, even though the Mass Transit Railway can get you there in an hour. The Tian Tan Buddha sits in meditation overlooking the South China Sea, surrounded by mountains that seem untouched by the city's relentless development. I visit maybe twice a year, usually when I need to remember that Hong Kong is more than skyscrapers and shopping centers.
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The monastery offers vegetarian meals that taste like prayers, served in a dining hall where conversation happens in whispers. Walking the grounds, listening to the bells and the wind through the trees, it's easy to forget that you're still in Hong Kong. But you are. This is part of what makes this city what it is. The ability to contain multitudes, to be both ancient and modern, both Eastern and Western, both sacred and secular.
The influence of British rule is still visible if you know where to look. Not just in the red postboxes and the English street signs, but in the legal system, the education system, the way we queue for buses. In the architecture of older buildings, the layout of certain neighborhoods, the afternoon tea culture that persists in hotel lobbies and private clubs. Even the feng shui principles that guide construction of new towers reflect this East-meets-West sensibility.
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But Chinese culture runs deeper, flows through everything. The temples tucked between modern buildings, where people still burn incense and make offerings and ask for good fortune. The street markets where vendors speak languages from all over China, where you can buy ingredients for dishes that have been made the same way for centuries. The traditional festivals like Chinese New Year and the Dragon Boat Festival that stop traffic, fill the streets with color and noise and celebration. The martial arts schools hidden in upper floors of old buildings, where ancient practices continue in modern spaces.
The wet market near my home operates the same way it did when I was a child. Vendors arrive before dawn, arrange their displays of vegetables and fish and meat, spend the day calling out prices and negotiating with customers. The conversations happen in Cantonese and Mandarin and sometimes Hakka, the way my grandmother spoke when she was excited or angry or trying to get a better price on winter melon.
These markets are where Hong Kong's cultural identity lives most vividly, not in museums or tourist sites, but in the daily negotiations between old and new, local and international, tradition and adaptation.
The city's cultural complexity, blending Chinese traditions with international influences, creates an authenticity that can't be found anywhere else in the world.
So here's my answer to is Hong Kong worth visiting: The question assumes there's a simple answer, but nothing about this city is simple. If you come expecting the Hong Kong of movies or postcards or travel guides written five years ago, you might be disappointed. If you come ready to meet the entire city as it is now; complicated, evolving, sometimes contradictory, always surprising, then yes, absolutely, it's worth visiting. Unlike many major cities, Hong Kong offers visa free access to visitors from many countries, making any trip easier to plan.
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The key is knowing how to look. Don't just visit the main attractions; though Victoria Peak and the Star Ferry and the Temple Street Night Market are famous for good reasons. But also ride the MTR to the end of the line and walk around neighborhoods you've never heard of. Find the nearest MTR station to a park you've never explored. Take a day trip to Ocean Park or even to nearby Macau. Eat at places that don't have English menus. Say hello to shopkeepers. Ask for directions even when you don't need them.
Public transport here is a marvel; efficient, affordable, air-conditioned, and surprisingly comfortable. The Mass Transit Railway can take you from Hong Kong International Airport to Central in twenty-three minutes, or from Central to the border with mainland China in forty-five minutes. This transportation system connects you to tourist attractions across the city, from traditional temples to modern shopping centers. Buses go everywhere trains don't. The Star Ferry connects the city to its history. The Peak Tram reminds you why this place matters.
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If you have one day in Hong Kong, spend it like a local. Start with morning tea at a neighborhood dim sum place. Take the MTR somewhere you've never been. Walk through a wet market. Maybe catch the evening energy in Lan Kwai Fong if you're in the mood for nightlife, or find a quiet corner in a traditional park if you need rest. Ride the Star Ferry at sunset. End the day with late-night noodles at a place that stays open past midnight. Don't try to see everything, try to feel something.
The city rewards curiosity over efficiency, wandering over scheduling, conversation over photography. It rewards people who come ready to be surprised, ready to have their assumptions challenged, ready to fall in love with a place that refuses to be easily categorized.
I've lived here my entire life, and Hong Kong still surprises me. Still teaches me things about resilience and adaptation and the art of making space for everyone. Still shows me new corners I haven't explored, new stories I haven't heard, new ways of understanding what it means to call a place home.
That's why I still think Hong Kong is worth visiting. Not because it's the same city it was, but because it's still becoming the city it's going to be. And that process, that constant state of becoming, is one of the most Hong Kong things about Hong Kong.
Hong Kong rewards visitors who approach it with curiosity and openness, offering experiences that can't be replicated anywhere else in the world. Your Hong Kong experience is what you make of it.