Golden Week is a busy busy time in Hong Kong. Because of this, some of our clients have asked whether or not this is a good time to join us for a private tour in Hong Kong. The short answer is YES it is.
This week in Hong Kong 2 of our (very generous) 17 public holidays fell in one week. Firstly, China National Day is on October 1st. We celebrated the 68th Anniversary of People’s Republic of China (PRC) with a 23-minute firework display costing around $13 million HKD ($1.6 million USD). Secondly, my favourite, the Mid Autumn Festival fell on 4th October. This is where we celebrate the full moon with our families, by hanging lanterns, often eating outside under the moonlight. Oh and we eat a ton of delicious moon cakes!
Have you heard of the term “Golden Week”? No? What on earth is Golden Week? Well if you are from China, you could have enjoyed an extended 8-day holiday period this year covering both these holidays (1st – 8th October). It was estimated around 710 million people from the PRC were on the move to domestic and overseas locations, including Hong Kong. Unfortunately, Hong Kong locals only get the two public holidays, not the full week!
Mid Autumn Festival is celebrated with lantern displays in many of the major parks. The verdict is in for this years best Mooncakes. The best one was considered to be Maxim’s lava egg custard mooncake (whoop! Maxim’s Palace happens to be one of our favourite restaurants). I did get to try one and it was probably better than my choice from Kee Wah Bakery (pictured right), but they are still all gone and were enjoyed immensely.
We hosted a number of private tours this week. We guided visitors from Worcester and Croydon in the UK and California and Alaska in the USA. Even though it is busier than usual during Golden Week, as private guides we have a few tricks up our sleeve. For example, Charlee and Cooper (pictured above) were incredibly thankful for our skip-the-line access for the Ngong Ping cable-car to the Big Buddha. The queues were so busy during Golden Week they went all the way back to the train station!
I was also invited onto the local radio station RTHK 3 with Peter Lewis. We chatted about what to do over the holiday period and what other people were doing. Watch the Facebook Live video of my interview below.
Here are some links to some of the things I spoke about with Peter. We highly recommend all of them.
