Photography Locations in Hong Kong

SummerSound

SummerSound

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Tom
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Hi all,

If you're planning a trip to Hong Kong, I hope you'll find this guide to photography locations useful:

http://blog.summersound.co.uk/2010/09/photography-locations-in-hong-kong.html

I've been to Hong Kong for the last 3 years and have found some great places to shoot!

As I've said in the post, I'm more than happy to add your suggestions for additional locations. So, if you've been to Hong Kong yourself and would like to contribute, please add a comment to the post.
 
That's a really interesting guide Tom. I've been to HK 3 times but all before I had a digital camera. When I next go I'll print your guide and photography HK for all it's worth.

In fact HK and Japan would be my ideal photo holiday.
 
Two weeks too late for me. I would have liked to have seen the Chi Lin nunnery and especially Tai O. It was my fourth trip and no doubt I'll go again.

I went to the Wong Tai Sin temple but it was pretty much a wasted journey. The main temple was scaffolded, tarpaulined and closed. Other barriers prevented access to some places or spoiled the view. And all the water had been drained.

Other places you could mention; the Man Mo temple on HK island, junction of Hollywood and Ladder St.

The Bowrington Rd street market for blood and gore, as well as nice fruit, flowers and other stuff. There's another one in the Central district somewhere.

The viewing level up the Bank Of China tower, floor 43. They've recently change access to requiring photo ID [ie passport] so make sure you have it on you. As a result there is now only one viewing direction - towards the harbour and west. The view towards the Peak is no longer accessible.

The viewing level up IFC 2. Again photo ID required. Again only one direction of view, and towards the west.

The Ladies and Temple St markets provide some good photo ops.

Mid Levels escalator in Central and all the stop-off points and views down on to the streets below.

The laser/light show on the Kowloon waterfront every night at 8.

The obvious Victoria Peak. Day and especially night. Use your Octopus card to get on the tram to save queuing for tickets.

St John's cathedral on the walk to the Peak tram.

Getting on a tram, making you way to the front [or back if you prefer] of the top deck and travelling along the island from one end to the other. At the east end turnround there's a small street market to have a look round. And a McDonalds to refresh yourself. At the west end make sure you get off before the tram disappears in to the service yard.

Sundays - seeing all the housekeepers/cleaners gathering in the open spaces, subways, bridges in Central. Many don't mind their photo being taken.

Ferry to Cheung Chau island. A nice little place to walk round, fishing harbour, no cars.

I found Aberdeen to be ok but marred by the constant onslaught of old ladies trying to get you to go for a boat ride.

Bus to Shek O. A nice beach but not my thing. I did enjoy walking round the nearby streets and old houses though.

Stanley I've found to be overrated as far as the market is concerned. It's ok to do for the bus ride and the town itself. Forget any hope of taking pictures out of the windows on the way. The roads are atrocious and you'll be lucky to get a single picture worth keeping.

The Wanchai computer mall. Not for photo opportunities [although I've taken photos in there] but to see all the tech stuff, gadgets, and some camera stuff too. It can suck hours of your life away.

That's all off the top of my head for now.
 
EMA747 said:
That's a really interesting guide Tom. I've been to HK 3 times but all before I had a digital camera. When I next go I'll print your guide and photography HK for all it's worth.

In fact HK and Japan would be my ideal photo holiday.
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Thanks Andy! I'm glad you think the guide is useful.

I did Hong Kong and Tokyo this year! I absolutely loved Hong Kong (as I always do!) but Tokyo was really disappointing...
 
MisterE said:
Two weeks too late for me. I would have liked to have seen the Chi Lin nunnery and especially Tai O. It was my fourth trip and no doubt I'll go again.
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Hi Michael,

Thanks very much for such a long, considered reply! I really appreciate it. (y)
I think you've suggested some great additions too.

Cheung Chau is definitely missing from the list. It's beautiful isn't it!

I completely agree about Stanley. The guide books really seem to rate it but, as I said in my post, it's very commercialised and not 'real' Hong Kong at all.

I'm sorry to hear about your experience at Wong Tai Sin. That's a real shame. It can be beautiful. I know what you mean about the women at Aberdeen! Very annoying! I do still love it there though.

I haven't been to the computer mall - thanks for the tip! Sounds great!

Yeah, definitely head over to Tai O if you're in Hong Kong again. It's one of my favourite places. Absolutely essential!

Thanks again :)
 
That's a great guide Tom. There's plenty of places that I haven't been to on there, although I don't tend to do much proper photography when I'm there, as I usually have the family with me, and we are also visiting family there. One place you could mention is the Big Buddha and the surrounding National Park on Lantau. If you think the cable car in Ocean Park is scary, you should try the Ngong Ping cable car, which takes you to the Big Buddha. As Michael said, there's Victoria Peak and the HK skyline in general, from TST. It's been a very long time since I visited, but there is also Tiger Balm Gardens, which i remember as being very colourful. There's also HK Zoological and Botanical Gardens, near the Victoria Peak tram, which is free!! I'm sure there are other places, but can't think of them at the moment.
 
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SummerSound said:
Thanks Andy! I'm glad you think the guide is useful.

I did Hong Kong and Tokyo this year! I absolutely loved Hong Kong (as I always do!) but Tokyo was really disappointing...
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What was disappointing about Tokyo? I've never been to Japan but hope to one day soon.
 
I've been to Tokyo twice and wasn't disappointed at all. What I did find somewhat of a problem was discovering how little English they speak. I'm not making the suggestion that they should all speak it like they do in Hong Kong, but given their contribution to Western technology and sales, the amount of English displayed in advertising, signs, posters etc, it's a surprise to face the reality. The technology shops sales people were slightly better than average. If you expect to eat more than McDonalds and KFC, where they have pictures to point to, I would strongly recommend taking pictures of the various animals and things you'd like to eat to help with the communication process. Even Coca Cola and similar, which, on one occasion, I was totally unable to convey across.
 
EMA747 said:
What was disappointing about Tokyo? I've never been to Japan but hope to one day soon.
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Hi again Andy,

There were 3 things I didn't like about Tokyo:

1. It's amazingly confusing! There's very few street names, very few people speak any English, the underground is ludicrously overcomplicated, there's very few signs (that are of any use!) and even simple tasks like ordering food are really hard work because every single restaurant seems to work in a completely different way!

2. It's upsettingly expensive! It's a pricey place to start off with but with the current exchange rates, it becomes ridiculously expensive. We just hemorrhaged money over there! You're looking at £6-8 for a beer. We took £600 worth of Yen with us and we had to get more money out after two and a half days! (And it didn't really feel like we'd done much!) Some bars charge you £5+ for a seat!! After a while I just stopped doing the currency calculations in my head and just handed over the notes...

3. I just didn't find it anywhere near as interesting as Hong Kong! As I've said, I've done Hong Kong for 3 years and nothing we saw in Tokyo really matched up to it. The temples are far less impressive, it's got much less character and even the commercial/shopping areas like Ginza aren't a patch on Central, Hong Kong (in my opinion).

I have to say, overall I did enjoy myself in Tokyo. I don't want this to sound like a complete slating! It was disappointing compared to HK though.

I'm sure others will have had completely different experiences. One of my mates thoroughly enjoyed it (but then he was visiting a friend who lives there and some local knowledge would be a complete lifesaver!)
 
MisterE said:
I've been to Tokyo twice and wasn't disappointed at all. What I did find somewhat of a problem was discovering how little English they speak. I'm not making the suggestion that they should all speak it like they do in Hong Kong, but given their contribution to Western technology and sales, the amount of English displayed in advertising, signs, posters etc, it's a surprise to face the reality. The technology shops sales people were slightly better than average. If you expect to eat more than McDonalds and KFC, where they have pictures to point to, I would strongly recommend taking pictures of the various animals and things you'd like to eat to help with the communication process. Even Coca Cola and similar, which, on one occasion, I was totally unable to convey across.
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Yeah, Tokyo is hard work innit. Even the locals are permanently lost!

Tell you what is brilliant though - the Tokyo Great Cycling Tour - http://www.tokyocycling.jp/

I'd highly recommend this to anyone visiting Tokyo.
 
I didn't find Tokyo at all expensive, but then I have different needs. On my two visits my hotel rooms were in the region of £25 and £35 a night. Nice rooms in nice hotels in the Asakusa district. All day underground travel card for around £4. Food was restricted to fast food due to the communications problem, which was about the same as here. That was about it, so in all much cheaper than London.

I didn't have any trouble with the underground and found it easy once I'd initially found a ticket machine with English on it to get my daily travel card. One of the ticket inspectors pointed me towards it, and people seemed to sense the bewilderment and were willing to help. I did have a problem once on the overground JR trains getting to Fuji. We stopped at a station part way there. The train emptied, except for me. Then the train started going backwards. So I was off at the next stop and trying to work out where I went wrong.

The bullet trains were fantastic. I got an unrestricted pass from a Japan tourism office in London - you have to get them here - you can't get one over there. It cost about £140. The bullet train tickets cost at least £70, mostly more so provided you use it at least twice you're saving money. It also gives you free travel on the city and country JR overground line as well as to and from the airport. It's impressive to see the trains arrive and depart almost on the second. Not a minute either side - seconds. It's also impressive flashing past at maybe six feet from somebody's flat window at over 150mph. Not so impressive for the resident. Can't remember what the max speed was.

I don't think you can compare Hong Kong and Tokyo. Yes, Hong Kong has a much richer character, but Tokyo has its moments too.
 
Some good spots. I have a nice view of the Ten Thousand Buddhas Temple out of my office window, we are in the damp cloudy season now though!

Best skyline view is still Braemar Hill though, I recommend everyone gives it a go.

Wouldn't reccomend Stanley or The Peak tbh, all commercialised, crowded and fake.
 
MisterE said:
Even Coca Cola and similar, which, on one occasion, I was totally unable to convey across.
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Simple remedy - just ask for Coca Cora:LOL:

On a business trip 5 years ago we stayed at the Grand Palace hotel...taxi driver struggled with the name so we got chatting to our company secretaries whom we got to write the name of the hotel in Japanese... On leaving our HQ we got into the cab, when we specified Grand Palace the driver had no clue:cautious:, passed the piece of paper with the japanese name :shrug: and then I just blurted out Gland Paris! We got to the hotel 5 minutes later:bonk:

:LOL:

Lovely little camera shop in Nakano - called Fujiya Camera - especially for Pentax users... Got my FA77 Limited there:D
 
mid_gen said:
Some good spots. I have a nice view of the Ten Thousand Buddhas Temple out of my office window, we are in the damp cloudy season now though!

Best skyline view is still Braemar Hill though, I recommend everyone gives it a go.

Wouldn't reccomend Stanley or The Peak tbh, all commercialised, crowded and fake.
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Hi mid gen. I'm in hk next month. Would like to take up your recommendation of brae mar hill. Never been there before. Is there an obvious look out point? I'm staying in l'hotel opposite tin hau mtr. Doesn't look too far. Any other tips/hints?

Thanks Gary
 
gazzag said:
Hi mid gen. I'm in hk next month. Would like to take up your recommendation of brae mar hill. Never been there before. Is there an obvious look out point? I'm staying in l'hotel opposite tin hau mtr. Doesn't look too far. Any other tips/hints?

Thanks Gary
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It might not look a long way, but it is a lot of up hill! Luckily there is a green minibus across the road from your hotel that does most of the work: 49M, if you have 40p to spare.

Here's a map
Untitled-1.jpg

  • Get of the minibus at 1 and walk along the road to 2
  • Jump over a small fence at 2
  • Walk across some tracks and under some trees until you get to the big rocks at 3

It's a fairly simple walk, but you can find a pictured walk-though here.

But be warned Hong Kong has a lot of pollution and it's entering rainy season now too, so I wouldn't get your hopes up of getting any good photos :crying:
 
Very near the airport there's some interesting buildings. I managed to have a stop over there and managed to get out the airport and took a few photos.

shot.jpg


Really nice place - begs to have photographs taken of it.
 
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