On a busy street corner, amongst the crowds of shoppers and workers, we discovered another crowd, jostling on a table. For sale, a microcosm of this multicultural city.

With a population of over seven million, Hong Kong's ethnic mix is varied. Although around 93 percent is Chinese, people from Southern Asian as well as the sub-continent, Britons, Americans, Canadians, Japanese, and Koreans all live and work here.

The city is packed with high-rise modern buildings, yet an ancient practice underpins the architecture and design of most new buildings. Feng shui – the design system that concerns man's relationship to nature and when well executed results in good luck and prosperity – is more than just a fad in Hong Kong. There are special tours of the city's architecture which shows it in practice.

For instance when a valuable piece of real estate came free some years back,there were some strings attached. Statue Square, on Hong Kong Island, outside the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, has to remain low rise. Nothing can be built on it that will block the bank's view of the water.

Hong Kong is one of the world's steepest cities. Kowloon means 'nine dragons' and was named in the 13th century for its eight hills. Eight? The ninth 'dragon' was a piece of flattery for the 13th century emperor, that was seen as a dragon too. He was the last of the Sung dynasty, and a ten year old boy at the time.

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On Hong Kong Island, the Midlevels Escalator, completed in 1993, is the world's longest covered escalator system, according to Guinness World Records. It is an amazing 800 metre combination of escalators and covered walkways with 20 reversible one-way escalators and three travelators, and the capacity to accommodate 210,600 passengers a day. It runs downhill from 6am to 10am, allowing workers to get to work easily, then uphill from 10.20am until the close at 11.30pm. At various landings, view such as this show the city's changing landscape.

In 2000, Hong Kong ranked as the fourth largest film producing economy behind India, the US and Japan. In terms of per capita production, Hong Kong is first in the world.  

More than a melting pot - Hong Kong's melange of cusines is more of a mixing bowl! Upmarket places like this attract English-speakers. In fact if you didn't let your eyes wander to the right, you could be excused for believing you had strayed to the UK. 

Likewise with this place nearby, serving up beer and bangers and mash and more. Even the street names (albeit with Chinese subtitles) remind us that until 1997, Hong Kong was a British colony. Now operating as a SAR (a Special Administrative Region) of China, the legacy of Britain's 99-year lease lives on. And somehow it all seems to work quite well.

Across the street a French-owned wine-bar and bistro, La Cabane, espouses the same grower to plate ethos of many fine eateries in major cities worldwide.

You can wander Hong Kong's streets and laneways for days, with any number of agendas. Shopping, dining, history, culture. It's all here waiitng to be discovered and explored.

And there are the quirky places which bring you back to reality. For this is still Hong Kong and places like Lan Fong Yuen, a teashop with a difference, are important reminders.  

Little more than a roadside stall, at Lan Fong Yuen you can squat on stools on a bench to drink your coffee at the kitchen window (or ask for 'milk tea' which comes mixed with coffee too!) or sit inside, share a table and eat simple snacks like French toast surrounded by the happy hubbub of locals enjoying a break.

At the other end of the spectrum, Yung Kee roast goose restaurant has grown over the past sixty-plus years from a simple hawker stall to one of the city's largest and most respected restaurants.

Yet it is still possible to see a cook at work from the street, and it is common for visitors from mainland China to take portions of perhaps the world's best roast goose back home with them. The ultimate Chinese takeaway!

While visitors could be excused for believing that money is the main thing worshipped in such a commercial place, Buddhism and Taoism are also alive and well here. 

Shrines and temples pop up in unexpeced places, and coils of incense remind us that there is religious freedom in Hong Kong. 

Hong Kong has over 600 temples, some dating back 700 years. Biuilt in 1847, the name of this one, Man Mo, means 'civil' and 'martial' and is dedicated to two gods: King Man and Holy King Kwan.

They coexist with high rise buildings and it's not unusual to see worshippers with a mobile phone in one hand and joss sticks in the other.

There are pockets of earnestly upwardly mobile residential areas with the same sorts of bars and bistros, restaurants and provedores which can be found in every large modern city around the world.

It 's easy to forget that Hong Kong has limited space, and little room to raise crops and other foodstuffs. Much has to be imported, from mainland China and, as in the case of this upmaret provedore from further away - US, New Zealand and Australia.

Hong Kong has the world's highest ratio of land conserved in country parks, together with one of the world's oldest and largest tree plantation and conservation programs. The ratio of land conserved in country parks has stood at nearly 40 percent since the 1970's. At the end of the 2000/2001 fiscal year a total of 643,044 trees had been planted in planted in Hong Kong parks.

 

Hong Kong Park is a serene space where children can play, other people walk and talk or meet for early morning tai chi sessions.

Like all people, the residents of Hong Kong have a taste for chocolate, and the Chocolate Trail at the massive shopping centre at the Shipping Terminal is well-placed to make mouths water.

In fact, Hong Kong itself is pretty much like a box of chocolates (Forrest Gump would understand this) – varied, decadent, mysterious, often surprising, but irresistible.

So if you are wondering how Hong Kong got its rhyming name, it actually comes from the phonetic sound of the words  in Cantonese or Hakka. It means 'fragrant harbour', just one facet of the seductive pull of this place which has been tempting travellers for centuries past, and who knows how many more in the future.

Find out more about Hong Kong and things to do there!