To see Hong Kong, take the tram

Tram Route Map – Hong Kong Tramways

HONG KONG — Getting around Hong Kong isn’t easy.

The British colony off the south China coastline runs fulltilt night and day with its millionplus individuals cheek by jowl in the sidewalks, their vehicles bumper to hubcap in the roads.

The simplest method to see the town, its shopping and sight-seeing is aboard the tram that runs in one end-of Hong-kong Island to another.

Passengers are carried about 130 million by the tram, in operation for 90 years, per annum along its 33kilometre route.

It runs across the island’s northern shore, in the Shau Kei Wan area within the east to Kennedy Town within the west.

But you really can jump away at some of the 113 stops to get a closer look.

It’ll cost you to re-board, however the tariff is cost-effective in the equivalent of approximately 25 cents Cdn a trip.

The top seats are front-row, upper deck. It might take several stops to work your way to this type of seat, yet this vantage lets you appreciate the road scene without being in the crowds.

As do odors from fastfood stalls, street hawkers abound.

Catch the tram at any given stop along the course.

This district was cleaned-up lately, its pubs tamer and lights dimmer.

With miniature traditional stores amid contemporary high-rises, Wan Chai is really a visual difference of Hong Kong’s old and new.

Continuing east, between Causeway Bay and Wan Chai, specially-marked trams loop around Happy Valley, the horse-race program. The stadium is encompassed by enjoyable, pricey residential towers.

Causeway Bay is fantastic for shopping and nightlife, with large Japanese shops and heaps of restaurants.

When you move Victoria Park, you’ll see folks old and young jogging or exercising with tai-chi within the morning and strolling within the night.

Onto Quarry Bay and North Point, with their collections of residential towers, nearby stores as well as waterfront activities.

 

Because of landfill, the purpose is currently inland and its only memorial is Possession Road, just off Queen’s Road West.

Several Western District structures are new, but the layout stays haphazard and also the taste of old Hong-kong is kept with arcaded and terraced shophouses, 19thcentury town mansions, rock quays and balconies, meandering lanes lined with traditional stores where tea chests and barrels of rice are offered and acupuncturists and fortune-tellers ply their trades.

Kennedy City is the western terminus of the tram and it has much more 1840s classic structures than Western District.

Credit: AP

Source: Merin, Jennifer. The Ottawa Citizen [Ottawa, Ont] 12 Mar 1994: pp. K5.

Photo: RabunWarna @ flickr