Liene's Adventures

7 DAYS IN HONG KONG DURING RAINY SEASON - CITY SIGHTS, DISNEYLAND AND 2 TYPHOONS

: on 29 September 2026; Hits: 12

Visiting Hong Kong at the end of July during its peak rainy season wasn’t quite the choice I would have made if it was up to me. Because in addition to heavy summer rains and high humidity, Hong Kong was also subjected to raging Southeast Asia typhoons. Even though these cyclones often bypassed Hong Kong, their devastating consequences were considered quite dangerous if one was to reach the city.

However, my husband had a business trip there and the dates were not changeable. The trip had to happen at the end of July. It was a rare opportunity for me and the kids to just tag along for a fraction of the cost of what a trip like this would have cost us. And as neither one of us had been to Hong Kong before, we decided to give it a shot. How bad could little rain be anyways?!

On the morning of our flight, I wasn’t even aware of the danger brewing far out into the South China Sea. Munching on our airplane snacks and sipping tea, our 3.5-hour short flight from Beijing soon reached Hong Kong.

Situated on China's southern coast, it consisted of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories. With 7.5 million residents in a 1,114 sq.km (430 sq.mi) territory, Hong Kong was the 4th most densely populated region in the world.

Until 1997 Hong Kong was a British Overseas Territory which was then transferred to China. After the transfer, Hong Kong became a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China. While it had a high degree of autonomy in many matters, foreign and defense affairs were highly regulated by Chinese government. Due to this geopolitical peculiarity, entering Hong Kong (even directly from Beijing) required us to go through immigration and customs to get an approval to enter the “country”.

Because we had a full week to explore the area, I did not have any definite plans for the afternoon, except checking into the hotel and then going from there... As we started to unpack our bags at the hotel, my husband realized he was missing some items. And then more items he thought he had packed were nowhere to be found… Until the realization came that he had forgotten one of his bags at the airport! This was a first for us! While we were hoping the missing bag could just be delivered to us at the hotel, that was NOT an option. It was still on the other side of customs and had to be declared and claimed by the owner before picking up. And just to top it off, the check-in agent in Beijing had assigned this particular bag to our 9-year-old kid’s name, which meant the kid now had to go back to the airport as well. Good thing I had made no other plans for tonight because a trip to the airport to recover the missing bag was on the agenda now.

As my husband left for the airport, I noticed that hotel personnel were scurrying around tying up umbrellas, carrying chairs and tables inside, and securing potted plants… Apparently, a typhoon was predicted to hit Hong Kong later that night. I looked around and the air seemed so calm… A quiet before the storm? I figured I had enough time to take a little walk to the waterfront to get my first impressions of Hong Kong.

It was dark already, and the buildings were lit up. People were walking, cruise boats going back and forth in Victoria Harbour, and nothing looked out of the ordinary. What typhoon?

By the time I returned from my walk, my husband and kid were back from their own adventures with the missing luggage successfully recovered.

At night, we were woken up several times by heavy rain hitting our panoramic glass windows repeatedly. The wind was howling. But it wasn’t consistent. Just as it calmed down and we were starting to fall asleep, another set of gusts came around. And it continued all night.

As we finally woke up in the morning, it wasn’t much better, except – it was daytime outside. The sky was dark gray, and the rain was pouring outside our windows.

I walked downstairs to the hotel concierge and asked for some ideas of what indoors activities we could do on this rainy Sunday. He said that due to typhoon, everything was closed, including museums, public transport and tours. He suggested we go to a mall. A mall?!? I did not fly all the way to Hong Kong to walk around a shopping mall! Alas, that was the ONLY place partially open. And being directly connected to our hotel via an underground passage, we did not even have to go outside to get there. With absolutely nothing else to do, we headed to the mall.

A phenomenon we noticed was Juju plush toys. These flower-eyed plushies were the new craze in Hong Kong, with people standing in hours’ long lines paying hundreds and thousands of dollars for “mystery boxes” of Jujus in hopes of getting the rarest specimens of these collectibles. That was insane to us! And when walking around the mall you suddenly heard a high peached scream of excitement echoing all around, it was most likely somebody’s lucky day with a rare Juju purchase.

With the heavy rain having calmed down somewhat, we decided to take our chances and go outside to explore. It was still dark, gray and wet; however, umbrellas were enough to shelter us from whatever remnants of the typhoon were still out there.

CENTRAL DISTRICT

We started with the Central District promenade and park. While it was a wet walk, it was great to be outside and stretch our legs.

Despite the rain, the air felt warm, so we decided to continue on and see more of the city. The tall modern glass skyscrapers intertwined with older cement and brick buildings.

By afternoon, traffic started to fill the streets and famous Ding Ding trams were back to running their scheduled routes. Operating since 1904, these double-decker trains were the most affordable way to get around the city, and a notable Hong Kong’s icon.

We made our way to the Central-Mid-Level Escalators and took a ride uphill. This walkway system in Hong Kong was the second longest outdoor escalator system in the world. It covered over 800m (2624ft) in distance and traversed an elevation of over 135m (442ft) from bottom to top.

As a matter of fact, the escalators changed direction by going downhill in the morning (to help people from higher elevations get to work downhill) and then switched to going uphill in the afternoon (to bring people back home). This system was created because Hong Kong Island is extremely hilly and steep and trying to climb these hills daily would be very exhausting.

As we wandered around, we found ourselves on Hollywood Road. Famous for its antique shops, cafes and street art, I expected to see some impressive murals. And while we did find some wall drawings, they weren’t quite as frequent or grand as I expected.

And the same goes for the famous Man Mo Temple. While we did take a quick stroll through it, it was much smaller in scale than we anticipated, and much too crowded for our liking. Maybe it was due to people hiding from rain, or maybe it was just the downside of its popularity.

We decided to leave the busy concrete streets behind and walk towards Hong Kong Park. It was like a breath of fresh air. There were tropical plants and trees all around. Huge palm trees and bright flowers. And with constant drizzle coming down from the sky, it felt like a true rainforest.

The bottom section of the park had paved walkways with ponds and bridges. There were fountains and even an artificial waterfall. There were ducks and frogs, and turtles and fish… The kids loved it here, and I did too.

A free attraction at Hong Kong Park that not many tourists knew about was Edward Youde Aviary. This 3,000 sq.m (32,000 sq ft) walk-in aviary featured around 530 birds of 60 different species. Visitors could see the birds by walking on raised wooden walkways.

Unfortunately, as we had made our way here, the sky decided to open up, and the rain started pouring buckets! Everyone ran inside the little covered entry area to wait out the weather. Just as it calmed down and people walked out, it started pouring again… Felt a little bit like a game of chicken, and the rain was determined to be the winner.

By the time we completed our visit to the aviary, it had turned dark. It was a different scenery - with skyscrapers lit up, bright streetlights and car headlights illuminating the city. We had walked over 6 miles (10km) this afternoon / evening, and it was time to return to the hotel. Everyone was hungry, my kids wanted to relax and watch TV, and my husband had to get ready for his workday tomorrow.

Only later did I find out that the weekend’s typhoon had ripped off scaffolding to buildings, flooded many areas of Hong Kong and caused various other property damage. It was the 3rd closest typhoon to Hong Kong since 2000. But I would have to lie if I said I witnessed any of this destruction. Apart from a few broken tree branches at parks, it just felt like a passing (never-ending) rainstorm…

KOWLOON

With my husband starting his work week, my kids and I were on our own for the next 5 days. While we had several choices for sightseeing, we decided to play it safe. The rain-front brought on by the typhoon wasn’t going to dissipate any time soon. And with it still raining on and off throughout the day, I decided to explore the Kowloon district of Hong Kong. That way, we could always run into a mall or a store if it started raining heavily.

The metro system in Hong Kong was very cheap, convenient and fast.

In no time, we found ourselves at Nan Lian Gardens. This Chinese classical garden with an area of 3.5 hectares was designed in Tang dynasty style with hills, water features, trees, rocks, and wooden structures.

Just across the street from it was Chi Lin Nunnery – a large Buddhist temple complex founded in 1934 as a retreat for Buddhist nuns. The old-style architecture with lotus ponds was a stark contrast to the massive skyscrapers in the background.

Our next destination was Wong Tai Sin Temple. While we could have taken a quick metro ride, I decided to walk the few kilometers there to better see what neighborhoods and streets of Hong Kong looked like away from main tourist spots.

What surprised me were seemingly endless raised pedestrian walkways. To cross a street, we often had to do it above ground, rather than using a pedestrian street crossing (which did not exist at many major intersections). While it was convenient not having to wait on traffic lights, these above-ground crossings were sometimes also very confusing and did not go into a direction we needed to go… Then we had to run around, looking for the right entrances and exits.

The casual street scenes of Hong Kong were also fun to observe. With shops and street markets, people were going about their day or just relaxing at a streetside café.

Slowly but surely, we had made it to the Temple. Wong Tai Sin was one of Hong Kong’s most famous temples, and it showed. It was very busy with not just tourists but also people who had come here worship.

This Taoist temple consisted of traditional Chinese architecture with red pillars, a gold roof with blue friezes, yellow latticework and multi-colored carvings. There was a Nine-Dragon Wall modelled after one in Beijing, as well as ponds and gardens with bridges and walkways.

It took us quite a while to walk the whole territory. And it took even longer, because my kids got side-tracked by toads, frogs and goldfish at one of the ponds. Architecture and history did not excite them much, but a big toad hiding under a bush was worth a long stop and admiration. Boys will be boys no matter where they are! On top of that, I was ordered to take a photo of it, so here you go!

When everyone had had enough of the temple atmosphere, we hopped on the metro to take a short ride over to Kowloon Park. We were especially excited to see the park’s aviary, as the one we saw at Hong Kong Park in Central District the day prior was very impressive. As we walked through the park, it felt a little old, a little tired… While everything was clean and tidy, it just needed a little pick-me-up.

And the park’s aviary was not at all like the one we saw the day before. This was a fairly small enclosure with several birds that we could look at from the outside; not a walk-though aviary where the birds had room to fly. More than the aviary, we enjoyed watching local birds that were living free here at Kowloon.

The walk through the park had brough us near the Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade. This, undoubtedly, was the most popular area in all of Hong Kong. This waterfront walk gave visitors unobstructed views of Hong Kong Island's majestic skyline.

During the day, one could watch the boats travel in and out of Victoria Harbour, but at night (from 8 to about 8:20pm) the Symphony of the Stars (a sound-and-light show) project lit up the Hong Kong skyline across the harbour.

The Avenue of Stars along the promenade was Asia’s version of Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. But here, the names of “stars” were various Asian artists, musicians and TV personalities. While we did indeed see these stars with names on them, we had no idea who they were, hence we did not have much interest in taking photos. And with such gray skies, the photos did not look too impressive anyway.

By now it was late afternoon, and I had promised my kids that we could go to the hotel pool later in the day. Having spent all day patiently touring the city, they started reminding me of this promise. With many more days left to see Hong Kong, I agreed to head back to the hotel.

VICTORIA PEAK

As we returned to our room and slowly started gathering our things for the pool, a surprising thing happened – my face got touched by a sunray! We had not seen a spec of sun since we arrived 3 days ago. I glanced out the window, and to my surprise, the skies had turned bright blue with fluffy white clouds and sun trying to break through them. Our hotel’s window was facing the mountains towards Victoria Peak, and what had been engulfed in fog and rain since we arrived, was now a fully visible peak. This was an opportunity I did not want to waste. One of the main things I wanted to do in Hong Kong was take the Peak Tram up to Victoria Peak. But as the views from up top were very weather dependent, the scenery had been engulfed in clouds 100% of the time until now.

Although I anticipated what the reaction would be, I told my kids that we had to use this opportunity and go up the mountain. They did not want to do it. It was their promised pool time! I had to bribe them, and on top of the pool time I now had to add 2 hours of TV time and some snacks and ice cream plus hk$10 each, until they finally agreed.

The Tram Terminal was within walking distance of our hotel. As I had not reserved tram tickets in advance, I was worried there would be none available. But there was no need to worry. The gray weather had deterred most people from pre-purchasing tickets, and the ones who showed up were tourists just like us – taking this chance at the last minute. There were no lines, and soon we were loaded into one of the world's oldest and most famous funicular railways that had been taking visitors to the Peak since 1888.

Once we reached the top and got off the tram, finding our way to the viewing platform was a little more complicated than it should have been. The complex consisted of a multi-story shopping mall with endless stores and restaurants, escalators going up and down and elevators. I had to ask for directions several times before we finally found Sky Terrace 428. Standing at 428m (1405ft) above sea level, it was the highest viewing platform in Hong Kong offering a stunning panoramic view across Victoria Harbour.

As we managed to get up here still during the daylight, I took several daytime photos.

Then we sat down and spent about an hour watching the sun slip below the horizon and the city lights slowly turn on.

And just for a minute, while everyone’s eyes and photo cameras were pointed towards Hong Kong skyscrapers, I turned around and an equally magical scenery unfolded towards the other side of the viewing platform. Many of the small costal islands were illuminated in bright orange sunset light with green tropical forest in the foreground covering the landscape like a large carpet. It was beautiful anywhere we looked!

Once my kids’ sunset-watching patience was exhausted, we took the tram down the mountain and walked back to the hotel.

I was very happy that we had mustered up the energy for this late-night outing. What I did not know yet at the time was that this would be the one and only weather window during the whole week where the fog and clouds parted for beautiful panoramic evening views. There was no other day during our stay where we would have been able to go up the Peak and see the views like we did tonight. Sometimes, one chance is all you get and you must take it!

LANTAU ISLAND

Having had the privilege of spending a full week in Hong Kong, we had an opportunity to travel a little bit outside of the main tourist areas. One such choice was Lantau Island. The largest of Hong Kong's islands, it lies at the mouth of the Pearl River. Its mountainous interior included 934m (3067ft) high Lantau Peak, known for Po Lin Monastery - the site of the bronze Tian Tan Buddha, a 34m (111ft) tall statue on a hilltop reached by a long stairway.

While I did not care too much for another monastery or Buddha statue, I was interested in the overall island scenery and the panoramic Ngong Ping 360 cable car ride which was acclaimed as one of the top ten best cable car experiences in the world.

From Hong Kong’s Central District, the metro ride to the Lantau’s cable car station took over an hour.

As we exited the metro and walked towards the cable car, I noticed that the island and the cable car route were almost completely engulfed in low-lying clouds. This was not good. To top it off, there were pretty much no people at the station. Where often there were lines hours’ long just to get on the cable car, we could walk straight up and hop on. I stepped aside and contemplated for good 10 minutes whether to purchase the tickets. But in the end – when else if not now? I decided to bite the bullet and see what comes of it.

Just as expected, the nearly 30-minute ride was engulfed in white cloud cover. While it was a magical experience on its own, I wished we could have seen at least some of the landscape because now I could only guess what it would have looked like…

Once we exited the cable car, a street lined with coffee shops, stores and restaurants led us directly towards the Tian Tan Buddha.

We climbed the steps to the top, walked all around the viewing platform (where not much could be seen), and then took the steps back down towards the monastery.

Having spent last 8 months traveling around China, we had seen our fair share of Buddhist Temples which my kids by now had nicknamed “the pointy roof buildings”.

The boys soon started to get bored. Going back to the shopping street and finding an ice cream shop seemed like a much better idea to them. And why not? We walked back, found a street-side table and sat down for ice cream and coffee.

While we were taking our time at the café, the weather seemed to clear up some. The cable cars going over the cloudy mountains in the distance became more visible. I decided that we had to take our chance and get on the cable car now while the weather was still clearing up. It could all be gone in an instant again. With no lines, we got onto the next available cable car and set off for the 30-minute journey back towards Hong Kong.

The clouds had indeed parted and we could finally enjoy some scenery! Right as we set off, the Hong Kong–Macau Bridge came into view. This 55km (34 mi) bridge–tunnel system consisting of a series of three cable-stayed bridges, an undersea tunnel, and four artificial islands was the longest sea crossing in the world. And it was quite exciting to see it from up above.

The rest of the way revealed green mountains, bays and hidden beaches.

And now I was not so disappointed anymore that our morning ride was cloud covered. The ride in and out gave two completely different perspectives of the place while being equally beautiful in their own ways.

A long ride on the metro took us back to the hotel, and I finally had to keep my word. It was swimming pool time for the kids with movies and snacks to conclude the night.

MARKETS AND MUSEUMS

With still a few days left to explore Hong Kong, we were looking for some out-of-the-box ideas. It was a rainy morning, and while I did not want to spend a day stuck inside a hotel, the weather did not allow much walking outside either.

To give my boys some break from all the temples and parks, I decided to take them to Hong Kong Science Museum. With many interactive exhibits about planes, cars and robots, it kept them entertained for several hours. The only downside was that seemed like half of Hong Kong had had the same idea - to visit a museum on a rainy day. It was extremely crowded!

By the time we were done at the museum, the rain had let up as well and we could finally go outside. I was told about various specialty markets that were within close proximity to one another. With nothing much else on our agenda, we decided to check them out. We started with the Flower Market where, as one might guess, the stalls were filled with various plants.

From potted plants to flower bouquets, from native specimens to tropical and desert varieties – everything flower or plant related could be found here. And this was the go-to place for locals whether it was a birthday or a wedding event.

Just around the corner from the Flower Market was the Bird Market. Yes, indeed – birds big and small. And bird cages, bird feed (alive and not), bird toys and whatever else one wanted.

One could buy parrots, cockatiels, finches and pigeons… But because the living conditions of these birds did not seem to be the greatest, we did not want to linger here too long.

Surprisingly, the largest market of them all was the Goldfish Market. Who would have thought that there would be a whole market dedicated to buying pet fish? While there indeed were goldfish here, there were equally many other types – guppies, barbs, betas, angelfish and more. My kids walked around the little shops and watched everything like it was an aquarium exhibit.

However, the deeper into the market we went, the more things changed. At the end of the street, the fish were not in nice aquariums anymore but stuffed in plastic bags and hung up at storefronts for people to buy as they passed by. Some of them were tiny bags with big fish that could barely move. And the water to air ratio in the bag was not appropriate for a fish to even stay alive until the end of the day. They seemed like disposable items on display.

We saw eels, baby stingrays and even crabs stuffed in these bags. My kids got so sad that they wanted to buy every possible fish to rescue it. And as I tried to take some photos of these plastic bags, I got yelled at by the store owner “No photos!” Hmmm… I wonder why?!

As we left the market area, we took the metro back to Central District where our hotel was. There was just one more thing we had not done yet. We had passed Hong Kong Observation Wheel almost every day, but each time postponed the ride for another day. Well, today was finally the day to ride it. And for just mere hk$20 (US$2.50) it would be a shame to miss it. It was definitely not the highest wheel we had been on, but for the low price it was worth the experience.

DISNEYLAND

The weekend had arrived and my husband was finally done with work. Our family’s plan for the day was to visit Hong Kong Disneyland. It was not a cheap outing by any means, so we contemplated until the last minute whether we should go there. Rained out Disneyland trip would not have been much fun. But as we woke up in the morning, surprisingly - it wasn’t raining. So we decided to give it a go. Neither me nor the kids had ever been to Disneyland before, so I figured this might be as good of a time as any to finally give it a look.

Even the metro line to the park was built specifically for this purpose. The metro train had Mickey Mouse windows and handlebars. The seats were comfy couches with various Disney characters and figurines on display. Adorable!

The line to get through security check and ticket control was long and slow, but once we entered the park people spread out, and it did not feel all that crowded anymore. Of course, we started with the main street where we stopped for some coffee (adults) and Mickey shaped waffles for the kids.

There was a band playing in front of Disney Castle and a small parade followed.

Once we had figured out the basic layout of the park, we started to line up for the rides. And I have to say that the rainy weather truly worked in our favor here. Based on the length of barriers set up for each ride and info boards, wait-times could often exceed an hour or two for the most popular rides. But all we had to do was zigzag our way through the empty line, and get on the next available car in less than 10 minutes.

Rides like Grizzly Mountain, Hyperspace Mountain and Nano Battle we even rode 3 times each! We literally finished the ride, ran around to the starting point and did the ride all over again. No wait. I couldn’t believe it.

After we had seen all the indoor shows and ridden all major roller coasters (several times), we shifted our attention to smaller rides that we had decided to skip at the beginning of the day thinking we would not have enough time. But with no lines we had plenty of time now - we rode Winnie the Pooh, span around in Teacups, visited Toy Story Land, and took the Jungle River Cruise...

And yes, we did get completely soaked by rain. And by the end of the day we walked straight through huge puddles as dodging them was pointless at this stage. But I would still take an experience like this at Disney any day over sunny skies but hours-long lines for rides where visitors managed to experience only 3 or 4 attractions from the whole park because the rest of the time was spent lining up. We did everything and more. Wet, with soggy shoes and sticky clothes but happy.

We stayed all the way until closing time to watch the final light – music – laser - fountain and fireworks show over Disney Castle. I was truly impressed! It was… magical! Will I become a Disneyland fan now? That’s still probably a ‘no’. Will my kids? That’s most likely also a ‘no’. But did we have a fun day? Absolutely.

With our flight back to Beijing leaving in early afternoon, we had to keep an eye on the weather again. Yet another typhoon was forecasted to approach Hong Kong later in the evening. I could not believe it – 2 typhoons during our 1 week stay! What were the chances? Thankfully, first part of the day was still calm enough for airplanes to take off, and the airport tried to get out as many flights as they could manage before shutting down the operations. Our flight was one of the lucky ones and took off before the typhoon approached. And just like before – the air seemed very tranquil, yet it was another calm before the storm…

During our stay in Hong Kong, we also dedicated 1 full day to visiting Macao. We explored both the Cotai Strip as well as the Historic District before taking the return ferry back to Hong Kong in the evening. To read about our daytrip to Macao, click here:

A DAY TRIP TO MACAU FROM HONG KONG - LAS VEGAS OF ASIA WITH PORTUGUESE FLARE