Hong Kong in September 2024 gave us the city in concentrate: trams, lanterns, and streets that manage to be a hundred years old and brand new at the same time.
We did what you should always do first on Hong Kong Island: stand on the pavement and let a few ding dings rattle past until the photogenic one shows up.
Our timing was accidental and perfect: the city was two days out from the Mid-Autumn Festival, and Lee Tung Avenue in Wan Chai had strung its whole sky with red lanterns and shoals of goldfish.
The same September took us north to Beijing and the Great Wall at Jinshanling. Nearby, Macao makes an easy ferry day out.