Let’s Never Settle

Hong Kong: Red Mid-Autumn lanterns and goldfish over Lee Tung Avenue

Hong Kong in September 2024: a ding ding tram bound for Happy Valley, and Lee Tung Avenue under a canopy of red Mid-Autumn lanterns and goldfish.

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.

A blue double decker Hong Kong tram numbered 13 with Happy Valley on its destination blind, passing a gold-columned Chinese facade
Tram 13 to Happy Valley, rolling past the gold trim. The ding ding never disappoints.

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.

Inga beneath a canopy of hundreds of red lanterns and goldfish decorations strung over Lee Tung Avenue in Wan Chai
Lee Tung Avenue in September 2024, goldfish swimming through the lantern canopy for Mid-Autumn.
A red double decker Hong Kong tram coming down the tracks between old shopfronts and Chinese signs, a tram lane marking painted on the road
The next one along, red this time, threading between the shop signs.
Inga and Dileep sitting at a white table on a hotel rooftop terrace under a heart-shaped metal arch, Hong Kong harbour and moored boats behind them
The roof of our hotel at the end of the day, with the harbour doing the entertaining.

The lounges we filmed at HKG airport

Hong Kong airport is one we keep passing through, so we've slowly worked our way round the Priority Pass lounges in Terminal 1. They're not all the same, and a couple are worth planning your arrival time around. Each one now has its own story.

The same September took us north to Beijing and the Great Wall at Jinshanling. Nearby, Macao makes an easy ferry day out.

We stayed at the Ramada Hong Kong Harbour View.