Sheung Wan

The god of literature and the god of war share one roof. Glass cases beside the main hall hold the sedan chairs that once carried the gods. In this temple of 1847, early colonial disputes among Chinese were settled by beheading a chicken.

The further west you walk, the thinner the antique shops get and the lower the prices. At the east end galleries set pieces out at the door and at the west end small shops cut frames and carve seals, along a road bending with the hill so the end never shows.

Goods are laid on cloth on the ground rather than on tables. Mao badges, old coins and brass locks lie mixed together, most of them recently made, so anything genuinely old means going into the shops behind the row.

Walk this street in the morning. By afternoon the shutters come down. Sacks of dried scallop, abalone and fish maw stand open along one side of Des Voeux Road West, priced by the catty according to size and where they came from.

The red brick market hall of 1906 still stands. For years small shops held the ground floor and cloth merchants the one above. The traders left in 2025, a two-year overhaul began, and reopening is set for 2028. Until then it is brick and arches from outside.

It was among the first homes in Hong Kong wired for electricity. Brick was hung on a steel frame in 1914. The stained glass and the teak staircase are as they were. The displays cover the years Sun Yat-sen spent in the city.

Small temples to Kwun Yam, to the god of the year and to the god who looks after sick children come one after another along this lane. A bookshop and a coffee bar have settled in between them. The lane is stepped, so not even a bicycle gets through.

Boats for Macau leave from here and the crossing runs about an hour. Even economy seats are assigned, and since July 2025 booking online lets you pick your own. The floor above connects into a bus terminus.

Old men with chess boards hold the tables through the morning. The park was laid out over cleared housing, so the ground steps down in terraces, basketball courts on the upper one and banyan shade below.

It was built as a bacteriological institute. The 1906 building carries verandahs on every side to shed heat, and those rooms are the galleries now. It sits partway up the hill, reached by a long flight of steps at a hard gradient.

The site of Possession Point, where British forces first landed and raised the flag in 1841. Reclamation has left it well inland, laid out as a Chinese garden with a pond and pavilion. In the mornings neighbourhood elders practise tai chi.

Granite steps and nothing else, climbing from Queen's Road Central to Caine Road, laid soon after the colony began. Sedan chair bearers hauled passengers along it, hence the broad, shallow treads. Midway it crosses Hollywood Road, handy for Man Mo Temple.

A park on the Sai Ying Pun shore whose promenade hugs the water, good for watching the sun sink over the western harbour at dusk. By the gate there is a bronze Dr Sun. Anglers and neighbours outnumber tourists.

Built in 1892 as nurses' quarters and later used as a mental hospital; after a fire only the granite front and arched verandas were kept, with a new building behind. In its abandoned years it was famous for ghost stories. Today it houses a local sports hall.