A return to Hong Kong - the neighbourhoods, the food, and why it's a city that always pulls you back.
There are cities you visit once, and there are cities that keep pulling you back. Hong Kong has been pulling us back for years.
It's been a constant across different chapters of our lives. We've lost count of the trips, and yet every time, the city has something new to show us.
Stepping off the plane in January felt less like arriving and more like returning.
The pace hits first: the crowds move with purpose, the skyline stacks in layers, and something always seems to be happening around the next corner. It's fast and dense and completely alive. It feels like a second home in a way only a handful of cities ever manage.
We don't plan cities down to the hour. The best ones don't reward it. Hong Kong is one of them.
This trip, we did it differently: three days in Hong Kong, then across the border into Shenzhen, then back for three more. One trip across Southeast Asia, with The Langham in Tsim Sha Tsui anchoring both of our stays. Sitting in the heart of TST, it's as well positioned as a hotel in the city can be, with the harbour, the MTR, and the best bars and restaurants all within easy reach. It became our base, and a very good one at that.
Coming back to the same room after Shenzhen made the return feel less like a check-in and more like coming home.
This was the opening chapter of a longer January journey, the three of us (Vannessa, Avery, and I) working our way through Southeast Asia. But Hong Kong was always the place we kept coming back to.
What Hong Kong does better than almost anywhere is neighbourhoods. Each one has its own tempo and its own reason to linger. We didn't try to plan any of it. We walked, followed instinct, and let the city decide what mattered. Getting around is half the experience.
The MTR is the backbone: clean, fast, and the kind of system that actually opens a city up. Early or late, it will get you there.
On one of our first trips, visiting a friend who had made Hong Kong home, the three of us had one too many drinks, the kind of night you don't forget. Somehow, in no condition to navigate anything, I got us all home without incident. The next morning was another story.
For something slower and more scenic, the Star Ferry is the move. The crossing between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island is one of the great five-minute journeys in travel, and at night, from the lower deck, the skyline opens up in front of you in a way no photograph quite captures.
The view is only part of it. The experience itself hasn't changed: the same green and white boats, the same harbour air, and more or less the same crossing passengers made decades ago. In a city that never stops reinventing itself, the Star Ferry is a rare constant.
Above street level, the ding ding, Hong Kong's double-decker tram, is something different again. It's unhurried and nostalgic, and sitting up top gives you a view of the city the MTR never could. The double-decker buses offer the same perspective with a bit more speed. Both are worth your time.
Then there's the taxi. Specifically, the Toyota Crown Comfort, Hong Kong's answer to the Ford Crown Victoria: instantly recognisable, slowly being phased out, and as much a part of the city as anything on this list. Ride in one while you still can.
We kept cash set aside just for this. We weren't leaving without putting Avery in a Crown Comfort.
This time the ride outdid itself. The car sounded like it was working through something personal, and losing. Our driver drove his automatic like a man who learned on a manual and never quite let go, and he was pure Hong Kong: attitude, style, completely unbothered. We weren't sure we'd make it, but you don't bet against a man and his Crown.
The minibuses are their own category entirely: faster than they have any right to be, with routes that feel improvised and drivers who treat the streets as a personal challenge. Not for the faint of heart, but as Hong Kong as anything else on this list.
Mornings in Hong Kong have their own rhythm. Find a cha chaan teng (somewhere between a diner and a canteen) and order milk tea, eggs, and toast before the day takes over.
After a full day on your feet (and you will walk more than you expect) we stopped at Australia Dairy Company. We'd heard good things, and what we found was better: classic Hong Kong food, no fuss, direct service, and a meal that earns its queue. Don't overthink it. Just go.
What separates Hong Kong from cities like Vancouver isn't just density or pace. It's what happens after work. People don't disappear home; the city opens up instead. Bars, streets, dai pai dongs, rooftops: everything becomes part of the same energy. It's addictive, and the city knows it.
The crowd is global. Tokyo, Singapore, London, Vancouver, Sydney, New York: everyone passes through eventually, alongside the people who grew up here. Hong Kong sits at the centre of Asia in a way that makes it a natural gathering point, and the world feels smaller here than it has any right to.
Few cities make it easier to reconnect with someone you haven't seen in years, or to meet someone new as if you've known them forever. Run into someone from Vancouver, even a stranger, and within minutes it feels like you've known each other for years. That openness is part of what keeps pulling us back.
And if you happen to be there on a Wednesday night, there's only one place to be: Happy Valley Racecourse. Floodlit, loud, and one of Hong Kong's great open secrets. It deserves its own story. We wrote it.
Some of our best nights unfolded without any plan at all. We'd meet up with friends, start walking, and let the city take over.
One night we wandered into a karaoke bar, the kind of place you don't look for so much as end up in. We ordered drinks, grabbed the mic, and fully committed.
Most of the people we ended up with were from Vancouver, introduced just hours earlier but already feeling like old friends. That kind of instant familiarity only seems to happen when you're far from home and the city keeps throwing the right people your way.
We were in one of Central's more colourful corners, and the crowd adopted us immediately. The singing was terrible. No one cared.
The nights weren't the only surprise.
At The Langham, we took a cocktail-making class with Randall, the hotel's bartender. Each of us came in with a different idea: gin cocktails, the perfect martini, something involving peanut butter. He walked us through all of it, not just how to make the drinks but why they worked, and it changed how we looked at every bar after. If you're staying there, take the class.
That same night, after karaoke, we ended up at Holy Eats, tucked into the hills of Central just off the main drag, because someone in the group knew the way. The strange part is that we'd been there before, years earlier, brought by someone completely different who also happened to know the owner. Different trip, different people, same welcome.
Hong Kong's cocktail scene deserves its own conversation. The bars we found are some of the best in Asia, each completely different from the last, and we have more to say about them.
January is one of the best times to visit. After the holidays and before Chinese New Year's Golden Week, the city settles into a rhythm: warm, clear, and a world away from Vancouver in winter. The city doesn't slow down for anything, but before the humidity arrives it's easier to walk, to linger, and to say yes to one more bar. Three to five days is enough to understand it. Don't underestimate a layover, though.
On his way home, Avery had one final stop in Hong Kong. By then, Vannessa and I had already made our way back from Singapore.
He knew exactly how many hours he had and exactly where he was going. He made it to Bar Leone, had a cocktail, and came back with what they claim are the world's greatest olives. We can't argue. Hong Kong is that accessible.
Pick up an Octopus card at the MTR station when you arrive; it makes everything easier. Cash is still king in Hong Kong, so carry some. Cards are accepted in most hotels and larger restaurants, but smaller establishments, street food stalls, taxis, and markets will expect cash. English is widely spoken, getting around is straightforward, and we never once felt unsafe. Hong Kong is one of the easiest cities in the world to navigate, which makes the depth it offers even more surprising.
And if you find yourself with a free afternoon and a sense of adventure, Shenzhen is fifteen minutes away by train. We wrote about it.
You'll come back.
Hong Kong doesn't let go.