Hong Kong is a place with multiple personalities, as a result of being Cantonese with a long-time British influence and increasingly more China connections. Perhaps the hallmark of this city is the frenzied vibrancy and the world class cuisine.
On the surface, it’s an urban landscape without the charm of what one would consider “China”. It offers the same upscale shopping malls and boutiques found in other world cities. But the small curious nooks, as well as the beautiful greenery and hiking trails, make it unique. The city is also known for its incredible efficiency as a result of its convenient transport, quick customer service and fast pace.

Hong Kong is divided into a number of distinctly different districts:

- Hong Kong Island was the site of the original British settlement. The Northern part of the Island is densely populated. Because of the scarcity of land supply, you’ll find most of Hong Kong’s skyscrapers and the famous skyline along the northern coastline. The main business and nightlife districts, in addition to the government offices, can be found here. The southern part of the Island has more leisure facilities, with beautiful beaches and luxury residential complexes.
See:
- The Peak. Overlooking the Victoria Harbour from the island side, offers views of the Hong Kong and Kowloon skylines, as well as many other touristy but fun attractions. To get there, take the scenic 10-minute Peak Tram from Central ($20), and then enjoy a high-speed rollercoaster ride down with green minibus #1 from below the Peak Galleria ($7). Get away from the hordes by taking a circular walk around the Peak. The walk starts along Lugard Road, and follows the beginning of the Hong Kong Trail. It finishes along Harlech Road. The walk along Old Peak Road is also recommended, but take the tram up and walk down unless you are fit.
- Hong Kong Planning and Infrastructure Exhibition Gallery, 1F City Hall, Central. Mostly of interest to infrastructure buffs, but to its credit this small propaganda exercise manages to make even, say, sewage treatment reasonably interesting with well-presented exhibits, some interactive. The highlight, however, is the Infrastructure Walk, with a giant scale model of a wide swath of Hong Kong showcasing projects completed and planned. Free admission, open daily except Tuesday from 10 AM to 6 PM.
- Man Mo Temple Hollywood Road, Hong Kong Island’s oldest temple. It was built in the 1840s
Do:
- Check out Ocean Park on the southern side of Hong Kong island.
- The many beaches of the southern coast are a nice escape on a sunny day, especially outside the weekends when they’re often packed. Repulse Bay is largest and the most popular of the bunch. To get there from Central, take bus 6 or 61 for a scenic, slow and cheaper trip over the Island’s hills, or expresses buses 6A/6X for a faster trip through the Aberdeen tunnel.
- Walk around the grocery market in Wan Chai
- Ride the tram between Kennedy Town and Shau Kei Wan. The journey takes round 80 minutes and costs $2. The Hongkong Tramways runs between the West and East of Hong Kong Island. Starting from the old district Kennedy Town, you can see the residental areas, followed by the Chinese herbal medicine wholesalers in Sai Ying Pun. Then the tram goes in the famous Central district with high rise commercial buildings and banks. Wan Chai and Causeway Bay are the districts popular with shoppers and are always crowded with people at all times. Travelling further east are North Point and Shau Kei Wan areas, which are of completely different styles from that in Central and Causeway Bay.

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Okinawa is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Consisting of 41 inhabited islands and 16 uninhabited islands, Okinawa has the only sub-tropical climate in Japan and as such is a major tourist destination for the Japanese, but not many foreign visitors make it to these shores.
The name Okinawa means “rope in the open sea”, a fairly apt description of this long stretch of islands between mainland Japan and Taiwan.

From the northern end of the chain near Kyushu to the southern end near Taiwan, Okinawa’s major islands are:

Okinawa Island — the largest island in both size and population, featuring administrative capital Naha
- Ie - an upheaved coral reef island with only one village and an estimated population of about 5,000 inhabitants
- Ikei - a great secluded island getaway with some of the best beaches
- Hamahika
- Kume - often said to be one of the most beautiful of the Ryukyu Islands
- Kerama Islands — a cluster of tiny islands between Kume and Okinawa
Daito Islands — specks in the sea hundreds of kilometers to the east
- Kitadaito — the easternmost island in the prefecture
Miyako Islands — tourists are usually most interested in the natural monuments found here
- Irabu — the “other island” of Miyako
- Miyako — by far the largest of the three main islands that make up the group
- Shimoji — very close to Irabu, but not quite as large
- Tarama — known for its August festival
Yaeyama Islands — closer to Taiwan than the mainland
- Hateruma — the southernmost inhabited point of Japan
- Hatoma - the smallest of the Yaeyama Islands, barely 1 kilometer in diameter
- Ishigaki — the hub of the Yaeyamas, with spectacular beaches and manta rays
- Iriomote — jungles and the mysterious Iriomote wild cat
- Taketomi — small island off Ishigaki, known for a carefully restored Ryukyu village
- Yonaguni — the westernmost point of Japan, with mysterious ruins and hammerhead sharks
- Kuro — tiny island mildly famous for having (way) more cows than people

Most people come to Okinawa for the sun and beaches. Even in midwinter, when mainland Japan teeters around the freezing point, temperatures rarely dip below 15°C in Okinawa. For more adventurous types, the vast yet almost uninhabited island of Iriomote is covered in dense jungle.
Cultural attractions are rather more limited — Japanese colonization and World War II did a regrettably thorough job of eliminating most traces — but two standouts are Shuri Castle in Naha on Okinawa Island, and the carefully preserved village of Taketomi in the southern Yaeyama Islands.

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A “Destination of the Month” on Wikitravel is a showcase article for a major travel destination, selected monthly by Wikitravel’s users. The featured destination for this month is Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Yogyakarta is a bustling town of some 500,000 people and the most popular tourist destination on Java, largely thanks to its proximity to the temples of Borobudur and Prambanan. It is the capital city of the province of Yogyakarta Special Region which is located in the southern part of the Central Java province, Indonesia.
Despite the official spelling, the name is usually pronounced and not uncommonly written Jogjakarta or just Jogja.
The town is a center of art and education, offers some good shopping and has a wide range of tourist facilities. Yogyakarta is a relatively small city, so travelling around town should not be too expensive.

Being one of the oldest cities in Indonesia, Yogyakarta has many heritage buildings and monuments. The number one must-see attraction is Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono’s palace, better known as Kraton Ngayogyakarto. Other heritage buildings from colonial era are: BNI ‘46 building, Kantor Pos Besar (Central Post Office) building, and Bank Indonesia building, all of them are located north of the Sultan’s ground. Other notable landmarks and attractions are:
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National parks in Thailand are defined as an area of least ten square kilometres that contains natural resources of ecological importance or unique beauty, or flora and fauna of special importance. Currently there are 102 national parks (including 21 marine national parks).

- The first national park was Khao Yai in 1961 and together with other parks in the Dong Phaya Yen mountains is inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage. It lies largely in Nakhon Ratchasima Province (Khorat), but also includes parts of Saraburi, Prachinburi and Nakhon Nayok provinces.
The park is the second largest in Thailand. It covers an area of 2,168 square kilometers, including evergreen forests and grasslands. Its altitude mostly ranges from 400 to 1000 m above sea level. There are 3,000 species of plants, 320 species of birds and 67 species of mammals, including elephants, tigers, gibbons, deer and wild pigs. Its waterfalls include the 80 metre Haew Narok.
As with all national parks in Thailand, the fee is 200 baht for foreigners, and 20 for Thais. Food is available from private concessions within the park. As well, night-time “wildlife spotlighting” is available via pick-up trucks in the early evening. Animals sighted usually are limited to deer and civet cats, and only rarely include elephants.

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