Hong Kong Park

One of the best things about Hong Kong's MTR (Mass Transit Railway), is that all of the trains are air conditioned. In Hong Kong's hot and humid weather, anything less would be unbearable.

This meant that the first part of my journey to Hong Kong Park was pleasantly cool.

On exiting Admiralty station, that changed completely. Hong Kong's heat is such that after thirty minutes outdoors, I typically found myself ready for a cold shower and a change of clothes.

Admiralty is in Central on Hong Kong Island, the capitalistic heart of the city with its steel and glass buildings that wouldn't look out of place in any major city across the world.

The park, a short-but-steep walk from the station is a fusion of that metropolitan sensibility with distinctly local touches; one of the first places I encountered in the park was a museum of tea.

The park exists on a number of levels. Above the tea museum and a wedding registry, an ornamental lake complete with waterfalls and terrapins forms the centrepiece of the next level.

Climbing steps to a level above the lake leads to the Forsgate Conservatoryy. Free to the public, it is divided up into three sections.

The first of these is the season floral (and teddy bear) display area.

The second is a desert environment, which was heated at a temperature in competition with the outside heat. I lasted about two minutes.

I have no comment on the theming.

The third area, a humid rainforest area, was fortunately much cooler.

 Further into the park, Olympic Square is an open air venue, although aside from some building maintenance work and a couple of cosplayers, didn't have much happening.

Another long flight of stairs and a bottle of water later brought me to a set of even more stairs leading up a vertiginous column described as a vantage point.

At this point I declined increasing my risk of heat stroke and instead walked through to the Tai Chi garden. Apparently suitable for Tai Chi exercise, it was only occupied by a handful of people wandering sedately through it.

Unless that's how you do Tai Chi, in which case it sounds like the type of martial art that I could enjoy.

Past the garden were Hong Kong Park's bird collection. Signposts pointed towards an aviary, although at first all I could find was a zoo like enclosure with birds in large cages.

Opposite that though was an unassuming little entrance that led into something that looked like the pterodactyl enclosure from the Jurassic Park films.

The nearest park exit to the aviary led out to the Peak Tram, the funicular railway that runs up Victoria Peak. Thinking I might see if I could chance it, I took a wander by - but the queue seemed a teeny bit long.