Three Pearls of the Greater Bay Area: Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Macau
Wanting to make the most of a family-bonding trip to Hong Kong, we added Shenzhen and Macao to our itinerary. We revisited our favorite haunts in Hong Kong and fell in love with new ones. But the addition of the two other cities, all on the Pearl River Delta and part of the Greater Bay Area, was worth the logistics of obtaining Chinese visas and negotiating train and jetfoil travel.
Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Macao are all part of the richest economic region in China. Both Hong Kong and Macao are much-visited SARs (Special Administrative Regions), while Shenzhen rose from being a fishing village just decades ago to become a major technology hub. The biggest tech companies like Huawei, BYD, ZTE, and Tencent all have head offices here, and it is one of the most futuristic cities in China.
Hong Kong
Many Filipinos are already familiar with this former British colony, but here are highlights of what made this trip memorable for us.
Food: Bakehouse is for us the best bakeshop (Haiphong Road in Tsim Shat Sui and the Peak). The long queue moves very quickly.
Best buys: sourdough egg tarts, parmesan Danish, salted dark chocolate cookies; actually, everything.
Bach Coffee, from Marrakesh. Happily, this gorgeous café is opening at SM MOA soon.
The Vivienne Westwood Café serves British teatime delights, but you’re also there for the stylish clientele and iconic ’80s rock soundtrack.
Mott 32, of course. Best view of the Zaha Hadid-designed Henderson building from here.
Arirang, which Filipinos have loved since it began at the Hyatt Hotel in the seventies, has moved several times. It’s now in Wan Chai, and we never miss this for the mutton K-BBQ.
Arts and culture: The fantastic exhibit of esteemed Korean artist Lee Bul at the M+ Museum. You have up to August to catch it. Enter all the installations!
Weekends at The Mills, a converted cotton mill in Tsuen Wan and now a Centre for Heritage Art and Textile, is full of adorable and quirky shops for fashion, food, and pets. The current textile exhibition “Threading Inwards” by local artists is a very happy place.
Shopping: For fashion fans, Schiaparelli just opened its first branch in Asia at the Prince Building in Central. Prepare to be wowed. By appointment only, but we popped by in the morning, and they let us in.
Shenzhen
What you will need: Chinese visas and the following apps for paying and getting around: WeChat (you need WeChatPay), Alipay, Didi (their version of Uber), and an eSim with VPN to access Viber, Google, etc. Shenzhen, like other big Chinese cities, is cashless.
Getting there: The fastest and cheapest way is by high-speed train, which takes off from the West Kowloon station, and the trip is just 15 minutes. Book your tickets up to two weeks in advance and get to the station an hour and a half ahead of time because you need to go through self-service immigration and security checks. Gates close five minutes before departure.
Itinerary for a day: Book for an early train to Futian station so you emerge in the business district, which has futuristic buildings and the headquarters of China’s biggest tech companies.
On a clear day, get a 360-degree view of Shenzhen from the top floor of the Ping An Finance Center, the fifth-tallest building in the world.
By 10 a.m., when shops open, be at Dongmen Pedestrian Street, which is lined with buildings full of affordable, trendy fashion and delicious local food. White Horse is like the Greenhills tiangge. Note the picture-worthy McDonald’s, the first to open in China, with its tiered, pagoda-style design. Dongmen itself (East Gate) is a historical area.
There is a Mix-C mall there, Shenzhen’s mall chain with both Chinese and international brands, but you are really here for the local ones. For lunch, head to Lao Wan Hui at the basement of Sun Square for Shaanxi biangbiang noodles. Great food here is inexpensive!
After lunch, the third stop is the tech market located in Qiangbei Bay for whole buildings filled with gadgets galore. Drones? Check. Robot? Check. But beware of the scammers who approach you on the streets; ignore them all.
Final stop, the upscale Nanshan area, where you head for Talent Park, which honors Chinese innovations, and the Shenzhen Bay Culture Park, which has amazing air pod-shaped buildings that house art exhibitions, a design library, and a theater. Have your picture taken in the corridors beneath with odd-shaped windows reminiscent of Dune. Then walk over to the Mix-C mall, where, by this time, it should be sunset, and the buildings come alive with an amazing light show.
Macau
Getting there: We took the Jetfoil ferry, which takes an hour, landing at the Outer Harbour, where free shuttles take you to the iconic Grand Lisboa casino.
Itinerary for a day: From the Grand Lisboa, take a five-minute walk to Margaret’s Café e Nata for the first of many delicious egg tarts. Margaret is the ex-wife of Lord Stowe’s Andrew Stow, so there’s always a queue. Staffed by friendly Pinoys.
Then walk another five minutes down the Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro, noting the black and white Portuguese cobblestones, to reach the European-style Senado Square, which has a fountain and many shops—but be sure to enter the beautiful Leal Senado Building. You will find many nice photo spots against tiled walls, steps, and flowers.
From Senado Square, it’s about a 10-minute walk through the colorful streets to the picturesque Ruins of St. Paul. Pictures don’t do it justice. Then visit the Monte Fortress beside it and check the views of Macau from every canon along the walls of the fort.
While we were having lunch nearby at Mariazinha, we overheard the Portuguese family next to us say it was the best Portuguese restaurant in Macau. The Filipino staff will recommend the seafood rice and francesinha, a sandwich filled with cold cuts and topped with eggs. Then explore the quaint and charming back streets of the historical center for vintage shops and edgy cafes next to heritage eateries like 1933 LaiKei ice cream.
Head back to the Avenida de Almeido Ribeiro to catch the 26A bus to cross over to Taipa. Here, check out the stunning architecture within The Londoner and The Venetian casinos. The Parisians’ claim to fame is the Eiffel Tower outside it. Have dinner at Lord Stowe’s at The Londoner before taking the free shuttle back to the ferry station.
