Ever since I realised the things existed, I’ve had a penchant bordering on the obsessive for hotel sewing kits. It must be a woman’s thing, but the prospect of being able to fix a burst zip or a missing blouse button with a quick visit to the loo is irresistible, not to mention embarrassment-saving.

That is why I am in Hong Kong, in one of the best hotels in the world and a major landmark here – The Peninsula – not staring with fascination at the fabulous view over Kowloon Harbour, or lounging on one of the many smart and chic sofas in the suite watching a DVD, or even immersing myself in the gigantic corner Jacuzzi which cleans itself after it cleans you.

No. Instead, I’m sitting on the edge of the enormous, back-supporting, sleep-inducing bed, sewing the hem on a new pair of trousers. The sewing-kit is a hand-held microcosm of the Peninsula as compared to many, many bog-standard hotels around the world. Where everywhere else, the kit comes in a cardboard, this is encased in a plastic sliding box. And where others expect you to spend minutes trying to pass the camel-like thread through the eye of a needle, here 6 perfect lengths of cotton come ready-threaded.

A sewing kit is a tiny thing to start from. Nevertheless it is oh-so-reflective of The Pen’s attitude towards making their guests’ life as comfortable and easy as possible. A staff member about to get into the lift? If he realises you were going to do the same thing, he’ll get out and let you get to your floor first. Food? Year after year, the French restaurant, Gaddi’s and The Spring Moon Cantonese outlet win local and international awards. And the rooms – from the basic ones to the suites – are everything you dream of when you click on that ‘Reserve a Room’ button on the web-site.

And Hong Kong, today, is finally acquiring the same attitude towards its visitors as The Pen in a life-imitating-hotel fashion. Gone are the days of dirt in the streets and frightening kitchens. No more the madness and mayhem of a city that knew its financial markets, but not how others viewed it. Today, Hong Kong is a dream destination, a cultural hub, and an organised venue, whilst it has managed to keep its very Chinese and British heritage. And it’s all thanks to the one disease that threatened to wipe out locals and tourists alike: SARS.

Until this day, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome strikes dread and induces nods of sadness in the people of HK. Thought to have been brought over by a professor from Guanghzou in February of 2003, the disease spread to the people in the hotel where he was staying and subsequently to Singapore, Canada and Vietnam. It was a death knell for a city where the biggest shake up in living memory had only been in the Chinese Government’s takeover from the British in 1999.

And it was SARS, according to my sources, which really brought out the character of the Hong Kongers. Famed internationally for their business acumen where staying on your toes is a given, they realised that the only way to get people out of their apartments and back to the life they used to lead – a life of work and play in equal measures – was by making everywhere so spic and span that they would feel comfortable enough to venture out. One of the very first places to do it was The Pen. It packed its enormous restaurants with diners on the first night and things started to look up again for everyone. A trip to what is now a region of China is a perfect introduction to the massive country, and completely different from the rest of it. Here’s why it’s so great.

Start at Kowloon. Even if you’re not staying at the Peninsula Hotel, you must see the magnificent building it’s housed in. Created in the 1920’s, an era of style and decadence, it is a perfect example of colonialism gone good. The lobby is imposing, yet strangely comforting. The afternoon tea is a ceremony, with scrumptious cakes and scores of teas (this is China after all), accompanied by a string quartet in the overlying balcony: a feast for the senses.

Outside, cross the road to the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Anything from a musical like Mamma Mia in the sound- and light-perfect modern theatre to the copious art exhibitions can be going on. Left of The Pen is Nathan Road where you’ll meet your first bunch of ‘Rolex, DVD’ touts. You can buy anything here. Just don’t expect it to be genuine. The electronics stores dotted along this road (this time selling the real thing) are extremely good value for money, and what’s more, you can even bargain in them. Don’t exaggerate though because the salesmen won’t appreciate it. The further down you walk, the cheaper the stores get, and eventually you’ll be buying frocks for LM2 (the exact same items in Malta cost LM15).

Turning left to Jordan Road, you’ll find the Temple St Night Market. If stand upon stand of t-shirt copies (varying wildly in price) and fake pashminas are your thing, then any time after 7pm, you’re in your element. But if it’s a balmy morning or afternoon, and you want the real deal, then walk on (or catch a cheap taxi) to the Flower Market in Flower Market Road, is as lovely a walk on the pavement as you’ll ever get. Around 50 shops vie with each other to sell a fabulous selection of, tropical plants, orchids and other flowers. Pity they won’t survive the trip back because the prices are around 10% of the local equivalent.

If you thought an obsession with birds in cages was restricted to local men and their vrieden then you obviously haven’t been to the Yuen Po Street Bird Market, situated a corner away. There are around 70 stands selling songbirds, mynahs and colourful parrots, along with elaborate cages carved out of teak and bamboo. The atmosphere is sopophoric and the people friendly, making it an area to linger in. Nothing beats the sight of a grown-up man conversing for hours with his feathered friend.

On your way back, do not, at all costs, be tempted to eat at the Very Good Restaurant. I’d done my research, and the excellent Lonely Planet Guide to the Food of Hong Kong told me in no uncertain terms that the Hong Kongers have a penchant for calling restaurants completely obvious names, so that didn’t put me off. But once inside the cavernous space under ground, the plastic flowers and the nasty setting should have. Instead, I made myself go through plates of sub-standard food at ridiculous prices.

Hong Kong is, in fact, full of excellent places to eat. And unlike many other destinations, these are not afraid to be housed inside hotels. The concierge of where you’re staying finds it completely natural to send you to another hotel for lunch or dinner, and rest assured that the quality will be high, and so will the prices. Luckily, the city is dotted with little eateries catering for all the tastes on the planet. Although it’s a province of China, Hong Kong does not really have a food it can call its own, and in many cases does not try to attempt fusion either. Instead, it just adopts Italian, French, Cantonese, Japanese, and whatever else its inhabitants take a fancy to, and perfects them.

One thing they know how to do in Hong Kong Island, a short ferry hop away (much easier than going to Gozo is for us), is roast their goose. Yung Kee, in Wellington Street, is another institution, and the most famous Cantonese restaurant in Central (the main area). Since they opened in 1942, they have been farming their own geese to control quality and their dim sum, available from 11 to 5, is excellent. Even their window, full of hanging geese, skin twinkling crisply in the sun, is a tourist attraction.

Hong Kong Island is quite a shopper’s paradise, though don’t expect cheap prices here. You can shop in designer outlets until your credit card gets snapped in two, and many an afternoon and night can be spent haggling over jade (if you know what the good quality stuff is like), but you’ll probably be better off just getting lost in the streets, climbing up to the cable car which leads to The Peak, from where you can see the rest of Hong Kong.

If it’s a decent quantity of shopping you want, the best place I found was Harbour City in Tsim Tsa Shui (in Kowloon). To call this a shopping mall would probably be doing it a great injustice. It’s a matryoshka of a building, choc-a-block with outlets and restaurants. The best value for money lies in the sports shops, which sell items like Puma clothing for half the local prices, and even less during the sales. The HMV shop in the same area is also excellent, with CD prices for top 40 albums costing LM4.50.

One of the good things about Hong Kong is that although it is extremely densely populated (leading to sky-high rental prices where the higher you go literally, the more you pay) it’s well-organised visually, architecturally and horticulturally. Trees and shrubs are everywhere. Nevertheless, you may want to get away from the high-rises and the fast pace.

Even if its population is even more dense, Macao is the place to do this. First check with the hotel’s concierge about connections. This is very important since not all ferries lead to the same ports (obvious to some, not so clear to others). The Star Ferry will take you from Tsim Tsa Shui to Central, where you then buy your catamaran ticket for a 65km journey that takes less than an hour. Macao has, as we say in the vernacular, a god of its own, and everything there is different from the mainland.

You – as in, anyone coming from anywhere else – normally require a visa, which is different from that necessary for China (see fact box). But as European Union citizens, we don’t. Finally May 1 starts to make sense. If someone asks you for it at Immigration, just politely point out that Malta is an EU member. Don’t expect them to know, especially since most people have never heard of us to begin with.

Macao was Europe’s first enclave in Asia, predating Hong Kong by almost 300 years, and its rulers were the Portuguese. Today, it’s a fusion of Mediterranean (low-rise) and Asian (high-rise) architecture, food and lifestyle. It’s a good place to spend an entire day, especially if colonial buildings, churches and gardens are your kind of thing. One of the best times to go is during the Chinese New Year when fireworks – which are illegal on the mainland – abound.

In fact, Macao is famous for being totally can-do, as in ‘you can do anything here that you can’t do in Hong Kong’. That includes eating dogs, although it’s not exactly the sort of thing you find in a street stall. The island is most famous for its Casinos, and their buildings are the first thing you see when you come in with the ferry. All of them operate on a 24-hour basis and anyone over 18 can try their hand at gambling. Some tourists never even set foot outside of their hotels since places like the Hyatt Regency and the Mandarin Oriental, have their own gaming rooms. When they do, they can continue saying bye to their money by betting at the horse races of the Macao Jockey Club or the dog races of the Canidrome.

For those more enamoured to their palates and their purses, Portuguese cuisine is rather heavy and meat-based with dishes such as porco a Alentejana combining pork and clams, or caldo verde (green cabbage, kale and potato soup) and takes visitors like us straight back to Europe’s chillier weather.

I never meant to go to Macao. I found myself experimenting when I realised how easy the whole thing would be. But then I never meant to go to Hong Kong either. I just decided to do it on the spur of the moment when I realised that an Emirates ticket to HK entitled me to stop over in Bangkok for free.

Little did I know that such a mix of destinations, cultures and experiences on offer makes Hong Kong a destination unto itself and would make me extend my stay by 3 days. My little box of needles and thread threw up more surprises than I thought it would.

Hotel

The Peninsula Hong Kong has long been hailed as one of the finest hotels in the world. Created 75 years ago in the glamorous 1920s, the legendary 'Grande Dame of the Far East' continues to set hotel standards worldwide, offering a blend of the best of Eastern and Western hospitality in an atmosphere of unmatched classical grandeur and timeless elegance.

The Peninsula Hong Kong offers the ultimate in luxury accommodations with the most spacious hotel rooms and suites in Hong Kong. Each one of the hotel's opulent guest rooms is comfortable and stylish and equipped with advanced technology for the convenience of hotel guests - underlined, of course, by the world-famous Peninsula service.

The hotel's celebrated fleet of Rolls-Royce limousines, together with The Peninsula's helicopter shuttle service from the hotel's rooftop helipad, offer hotel guests luxurious transportation to and from Hong Kong International Airport and around Hong Kong.

The Peninsula Hong Kong

Salisbury Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR

Tel: (852) 2920 2888

Fax: (852) 2722 4170

www.peninsula.com

 

Visa

You need a Visa for China, which is obtained from the Visa office of the Chinese Embassy in St. Julians. The procedure is extremely straight forward – take two photos, your passport and money with you - and the staff are polite and informed. The visa will be ready one week later.

 

Nights out

Unlike in the rest of Asia, Hong Kong likes to dress up. During the day, men in Armani suits are the norm, and at night, the ladies don designer heels and frocks to visit cool clubs such as The Felix. Designed by the godfather of quirky style himself, Philippe Starck, this venue is a mix of fusion cuisine restaurant with chair-backs depicting staff and a wondrous bar with extraordinary views over all Hong Kong. It’s listed as one of the best bars in the world, if only for the men’s bathroom, which has urinals overlooking the lights of Hong Kong Harbour. Ladies can re-apply their Chanel gloss while looking at the same view.

Other clubs include the Russian ones where temperatures zoom to minus 10 celcius and you’re given a fur coat with your vodka shot, but for the less adventurous, musicals and theatre of the calibre you get in London, as well as music, are an ongoing appointment. Always ask your concierge.

 

Transport

Hong Kong is a hub. Planes fly in from all over the world, trains chug chug down from China (you can cross from Shanghai to Hong Kong in 24 hours with the Hong Kong train company) and automobiles in the form of cheap taxis are everywhere. But the best thing to carry you around are the Ferries, of which there are copious quantities at ridiculous prices. It cost me the equivalent of 3c to get the 15 minute ferry to Hong Kong Island.

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