Highlights of Hong Kong (2018)

Yikes, I took too long a break from my information Travel Throwback Tuesdays, didn’t I? Truth be told, it feels a little like a chore to detail my travels from a while back. Especially during this pandemic. It feels like a while yet before us Australian folks will be allowed to travel again.

Note there will be quite a few photos of food in this post.

A view of the city of Hong Kong as seen from the ground, with the harbour’s water in view
Hong Kong on a cloudy, misty late afternoon

In 2018 I spoke at Hong Kong Code Conf. It was my first international conference, which was extremely exciting! 😊 Nick and I decided to use the opportunity to also spend a week in Hong Kong working remotely and experiencing the city. I didn’t write much about this experience at all, including the conference itself. 😅

The inside of a conference room with a wide screen showing “The web for everyone” and a number of different emoji to represent diversity. A woman stands at a podium at the front of the room on a stage.
Me presenting at Hong Kong Code Conf
A view of the city of Hong Kong, with the harbour and many buildings visible, seen from the inside of a glass window at a high vantage point
The view from the highest building in Hong Kong – where the conference was held 😀

Although it happened two years ago, I still have some pictures to share and a summary of our time there. This is going to be quite a short post – even though it was a memorable trip, it was mostly filled with eating food, working from our hotel or from a cafe, and browsing the shopping malls. So effectively there is not all that much to share. 😆

The view from the side of a plane, of the city of Sydney. It is during the day and the sky is blue
Taking off from Sydney
A woman sitting on a Looney Tunes stylised bench. A life size statue of the Marvin the Martian character is sitting next to the bench
Marvin the Martian is actually one of my favourite cartoon characters, haha

We stayed at a hotel in North Point. It had a gym (woooo! 😂) and an infinity pool. We were able to keep up our gym routine while we were there. With Hong Kong being a few hours behind Sydney, we still made every effort to work on Sydney time, and woke up at 6:00am and often started working at 7:00am, so that around lunchtime we could grab a bite to eat and spend time enjoying the city.

The view of an infinity pool from the water side, showing a view of Hong Kong through the glass at the end of the pool
OK, we didn’t use the pool at our hotel, but we did use the gym.😂

We flew into Hong Kong on a Friday, with the conference happening the next day. Our flight was delayed a little bit, but we arrived in time for the speaker dinner. This was a good opportunity to meet the organisers and the other speakers.

A group of people around a round table, smiling. The table has food on it and the setting is inside a food court.
Speaker dinner for Hong Kong Code Conf (📸: Matthew, RIP buddy 💐)
A primitive dining table setting, with a coconut with the top sliced open. It has a straw and spoon sticking out of the top if it.
Drinking from a coconut 🥥 I can say I’ve actually only drunk straight from a coconut a couple of times in my life!

Although we worked for most of the week, we still had a really nice time in Hong Kong. Most of the time we worked from our hotel but a couple of times we found cafes to work in.

Salmon eggs benedict served on a plate (poached egg with hollandaise sauce, with smoked salmon and avocado on toast)
I mean, can’t usually go wrong with salmon eggs benny… 🍳 Though I eat it in moderation
Smoked salmon with spinach served with onion on toasted bread, presented on a round white dish.
We stopped by a cafe that served brunch, and did some work here.
A woman’s hand holding a paper bag with a Hong Kong style egg waffle in it, having the texture of hemispheres
I thoroughly enjoyed this egg waffle (after lining up for a while for it); it was at a location near our hotel

This is somewhat random, but I brought along my showercap (from Shhhowercap) and Nick was making fun of me for wearing it in the rain. LOL. Well, when I bought it, I knew it was going to last me a long time as it’s made of durable, hydrophobic and waterproof material, and it’s exceptional quality. It was even suggested you could wear it in the rain. So I brought it along and it actually did stop my hair from getting wet. 😛 And the cap was not ruined, either.

A woman wearing a dark green jumper and light blue jeans and brown boots, with a brightly coloured showercap on her head. She is outside in the rain in a street in Hong Kong
I was making an outfit statement with it, and you actually can wear this one in the rain. So sue me.

The highlight was definitely the food – some of it is just difficult to forget. 😋 These pan-fried dumplings from Cheung Hing Kee are out of this world. If you ever find yourself in Hong Kong, these are unreal. There isn’t really a place for seating but many folks will be standing around eating these as a snack.

A cardboard box of four pan-fried pork dumplings seasoned with sauce. Wooden disposable chopsticks stick out the side of the box
Best goddamn pork buns 🤤
A large grilled eel (Japanese unagi) on a bed of white rice
We caught up with Holger, who also spoke at the conference, and had Japanese. This is a bowl of some very delicious unagi (eel)
A tall glass of Hong Kong milk tea, which is iced and has a tan brown colour to it
Hong Kong milk tea! A must-try when you are in Hong Kong 💙
A bowl of soup with Asian greens, many prawns and some other vegetables
Love me some good soup noodle with seafood!
A small white cup of Hong Kong style milk tea, served on a small saucer
Milk tea, but make it hot 🍵
A white bowl of stir-fried noodles served with slices of roast pork, topped with sesame seeds.
Delicious, delicious Hong Kong style noodles.

In terms of landmarks and tourist attractions, we visited the Big Buddha and the Peak one afternoon, and also squeezed in a trip to Hong Kong Disneyland on the day of our flight back to Sydney. Since the Disneyland is fairly small, we were able to go on most of the rides and explore the whole park in several hours.

A view of two lines of cable cars going in opposite directions as seen from another cable car on the route
The cable cars provided an incredible view (and had glass floors…)
A very large Buddha statue from a low angle. The sky is clear and blue but it is dusk
Big Buddha. I swear he looks smaller than the previous time I went to HK…
A view of blue sky and many trees, with some low mountains in the distance
A view from near the top of the Buddha
A view of the city of Hong Kong from a high vantage point, with some shadowed trees in the lower foreground.
The view from The Peak – unfortunately we visited at a later time so there were many shadows.
The inside of a theme park with some people dressed in character as life-sized green soldier figurines. A wall with colourful letters of the alphabet sit on the side.
Toy Story Land at Hong Kong Disneyland

Most other days we found some time to explore the city in the afternoons after wrapping up work for the day.

A business district of Hong Kong, where there is a busy road of vehicles. In the centre of the frame is a garden that appears to be well groomed and filled with some palm trees and shrubs.
Taking some time out to explore the city
A man and woman with dark hair, smiling. They are taking a selfie in front of a blue wall with “Admiralty” written in English and in Chinese symbols.
One of the only selfies we took together (but I also like “Admiralty” as a station name)
A tall tower with a long water feature in front of it. Palm trees adorn the sides of the water feature. The sky is cloudy and muted in colour.
Just wanted to include this photo because it is a nice tower? Haha

And that’s it for this post! Mostly photos with longer captions. I know this style varies from my usual travel recounts, but I don’t mind it too much. I thought it was that I didn’t remember what happened (granted, it was two years ago), but as I mentioned, the truth is that there weren’t really a tonne of details. Maybe I just summed it up better. But I have three posts left in this informal series, and I’ve yet to think about how I will structure them. I really only intended for them to be recaps with photos, however, some of my travel posts in the past have been centred around certain parts of the trip rather than by city. I think I am splitting them by city for this series because I have a goal where I am essentially filling in gaps on my blog. 😆

Either way, I will catch you on the flip side. Hope you are doing well!

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