IT IS easy to develop conflicting feelings for Hong Kong, a city on steroids.
Sure, its utter lack of elbow room, dizzying pace, and through-the-roof rates for miniscule spaces, can be overwhelming even for the most seasoned of travelers. And yet, every quick break in Hong Kong leaves you perfectly wanting for the next.
Once you have ticked off the laundry list of entry-level attractions (Victoria Peak, Avenue of Stars, Ngong Ping, and the like), you can still come back to Hong Kong and find yourself with a refreshing itinerary.
I almost always time my Hong Kong trips around the last quarter of the year. Summers in Hong Kong, between the months of June to August, are brutally muggy, and there is a high chance for typhoons to hit in September. The humid spell evaporates around November, making it a perfect month to be out and about in the city. This early, you can schedule your end-of-the-year trip by hounding airline sales (P6,000 to P8,000 should be a fair price range for round-trip tickets) and availing yourself of early-bird discounts for gigs.
Outdoor music and arts
This predictable drop in temperatures makes outdoor shows comfortable. So it is no surprise that Hong Kong’s biggest international music and arts festival, Clockenflap, is scheduled in the month of November. This year, organizers have already announced that its 12th edition will be held from November 22 to 24.
It’s the solid line-up of musical performances that keeps ticket sales up. About 36 acts came for last year’s edition. I bit the bullet when they included Canadian dream-pop group, Alvvays, and post-punk band, Interpol, in the line-up.
Simultaneous performances are scattered between three different stages in the expansive venue, allowing the festival to create an immersive experience even when the audience swells to tens of thousands of people.
Apart from catching your favorite international or regional acts, there is much to see at the Clockenflap. The festival grounds open in the afternoons, you can use this time to comb through the art installations and the maker’s market. Here, cash transactions are prohibited. Instead, Clockenflap issues RFID-enabled wristbands to each festival-goer, making electronic payment possible.
For three consecutive nights, performances and activities typically close a little before midnight, just in time for you to be able to catch the last train out from Admiralty or Central Station.
Street art
To make the most of your stay in Hong Kong, you could spend your mornings going around the city before you hit the concert grounds. If you understandably blew most of your trip’s budget on festival tickets like we did, there are admission-free corners that are worth your while, thanks to HKWalls, a grassroots street art festival that started in 2014.
Rather than keep their movement underground and having graffiti executed guerrilla-style, HKWalls went above board by asking tenants, landlords, and shop owners permission to use their walls. The group’s simple goal is to beautify community spaces. And this they did, noticeably. The visual appeal of the resulting street art lanes has transformed them into overnight internet sensations; leave it to the do-it-for-the-(Insta)Gram generation to spread the word. The net effect: tourists now flock to the streets of Central, circling like hawks, for a turn to pose in front of these photogenic walls.
Of all the walls, it is the mural of old townhouses at the intersection of 46 Graham Street and 48 Hollywood Road, Central, which is the most recognizable, judging by the long queue by midday. Clearly inspired by the city’s iconic tong lau tenement buildings, it is made by local graffiti artist, Alex Croft.
Nearby is the very hard to miss, Madera Hollywood Hotel, whose façade is entirely covered with figures of Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and Charlie Chaplin, painted in pop-art style. Taxis and private cars still snake their way into the surrounding alleyways of Central, so keep one watchful eye on the traffic whilst you strike a pose for your money shot.