Strollin' Through Hong Kong Park

     With a month under our belts in Hong Kong, we have quickly grown to love this fascinating city with lots of hidden gems to uncover.  One such gem wasn't so much uncovered as sought after.  Before leaving Germany we were talking to some of our colleagues from Frankfurt, namely Kate and Tran, who raved about Hong Kong and were particularly impressed by a park in the middle of the city that had a massive aviary - and it was free!  Needless to say, free attractions always sound great when you're on a budget, so we took off one weekend to find this shindig.

     Sure enough, right in the middle of all of the busyness of Hong Kong Island, in between several high-rise buildings there's a nice park that is built into a terraced hill.  The park doesn't have a ton of green space, but there are waterfalls, ponds with fish and turtles, a small zoo, fountains, and a huge, netted aviary - not to mention a chapel that's popular for weekend weddings.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves at this point, but keep in mind that this place is totally free and sitting smack dab in the middle of a crazy busy city.

I really liked the contrast of the aviary against some corporate skyscrapers.

These caged birds were still singing with beautiful blue skies around and a huge area to fly around in.

Marisa is highlighting one of the waterfalls in the park.

There were a ridiculous amount of turtles and fish kickin' it in the ponds.

They had a nice little elevated walkway through the aviary.

There were many tropical birds that we'd never seen before, but I can't even try to identify any.  I don't think this one is on my grandma's bird-call clock.

These fellas went to town on some banana and pomegranate.

Besides the aviary we also checked out the zoo which had a pretty big primate collection - here are some lemurs from Madagascar.  We didn't take too many pictures because they were all behind cages and kind of far away.  While it is depressing seeing caged animals in a zoo, we could spend hours watching the monkeys chase each other around their enclosures.

     As you can see, Hong Kong Park is definitely worth a glance for a half-day activity.  If you have a bigger lens than us, then I definitely recommend the aviary - or you could always ditch the camera and just enjoy it.  Thanks for the tip Kate and Tran!


--Justin