First Time in Hong Kong 🇭🇰 Is It Really the New York of Asia?

Welcome to Hong Kong! One of the most densely populated cities in the world known for its iconic skyline and a place I've been dreaming of visiting for years. So over the next few days we're exploring as many neighborhoods as we can, hopping on countless ferries and trying all the food we can find. Often compared to New York, Hong Kong is a real melting pot of cultures and I want to find out what makes this city so special and whether it's actually worth your visit. Star Ferry to Central, nice. We're now leaving Kowloon, which is on the mainland side of Hong Kong. Across Victoria Harbor lies Hong Kong Island, but Hong Kong is actually made up of more than 200 islands, many of which you can explore if you have a little bit more time than us. And just like that, we've made it to Central Pier. Such a cool view. I'm excited, it looks so different already in the area where we're staying. So many palm trees, a bit more tropical maybe, a bit more relaxed, not so New York. I don't believe it, there's a Mr. Softee, I've seen him so often on Instagram. So lucky, so excited. Mr. Softee actually first came to Hong Kong back in the 1970s, although the company originally started in the US. It's become a real Hong Kong classic, but I'm curious, do locals actually enjoy them too? Or is it just us tourists? Wow, the views all around here are just breathtaking. I think if I would show you every single frame, the video would be hours long. So just make sure to come yourself. And I really enjoy these like overpasses on top of the streets. So great! We have the IFC mall, just walked through it really quickly. But now this is probably the part that reminds me most of New York. We're in central, surrounded by huge skyscrapers with people rushing in every direction, taxis and cars constantly passing by. It really feels like everyone is on their way somewhere important and you get that unmistakable fast-paced big city energy. That's so cool! Look at the ding-dings! Look at the ding-dings! These cute drums are another iconic part of Hong Kong and they've been running here for over a hundred years. I really can't wait to ride on one myself later. Well, if I'm not mistaken, it's called Central Market where we are right now. And wow, our amazing nature walk continues! I'm not complaining though, that's pretty cool. I see tons of coffee shops and fun eateries everywhere. So cool. We're walking down here now. Funky shops. Oh, I love purple and the big duck. That's funny. Made it to the first stop I've been navigating us to. Lan Fong Yuen, I hope that's how you pronounce it. Super fun, nice, yes thank you. Always gotta mind your head, so busy, looking good, looking good. Ah so happy we got a seat. This place has actually been around since 1952, starting out as a small street food stall. It's famous for its traditional milk tea and pineapple buns, which by the way don't actually contain any pineapple. They're named after their crispy topping that looks like pineapple skin so definitely super delicious love the milk tea but i have to admit i feel like when somebody tells you that it's nice you have to go there you have high expectations and i've seen it all over instagram all the time i'm gonna move a bit so everybody can take their pictures i'm standing like right in front of it the staff was incredibly kind so come here make your own opinion if you got something else let me know down below what was your favorite what should i try next time But it's definitely a very cool picture spot with the purple building behind us. But I'm loving our walk in this area. The flowers, unfortunately, were a little bit out of our budget. And also, we're only staying in Hong Kong for a couple of days. Our apartment doesn't even have a window. We live in a shoebox. Please like and comment so I can afford something better. But on a more serious note, Hong Kong's housing situation is a pretty big issue. There are plenty of videos out there that go much deeper into the topic and explain it better than I ever could. But just to give you an idea, so many people here live in incredibly small apartments. And as a tourist, you rarely get to see this side of Hong Kong. But for now, let's continue our walk, which is about to get really colorful. So amazing. Overall, for Asia, I feel like, oh, there's a kitty sleeping in the box. Look at her. She looks like my cat. It's so good. Like, how is that possible? You have such a, like, building like that. Building like that. And a fancy building in the middle. Oh, sorry. Sorry. I was in the way for the dog walker. And here we already have the next fancy coffee shop. And the next fancy coffee shop. Like, that's crazy. Every single thing here is so fancy. I almost missed the street, but everybody's taking pictures, so naturally have to see what there is. Wow! Alright, that looks amazing. Also, side note, crazy expensive soap. First time ever seeing the actual store. Who has one? How is it? Let me know. Not that I would spend $46 on soap, but... Wow, it's so beautiful! Also here, this art I almost missed. Marilyn Monroe. So dope. And the taxis. Driving crazy. Such a cool building. You see? It's like an iron. Look how cute this is. Now we're walking onto Chalet Street so that you know where we are. And wow. That's definitely a workout. On the side you have the escalators just in case. That's so funny. Oh, and here we are. Vision Bakery. Oh, smells amazing. It's so long also. Let's check it out. Look at the prices. Oh my god. Wow, and here you see the process. Look at this one. It smells amazing. You don't believe it. Moments away from the bakery, I already see art again. I don't know if you know but I really love art. So this city has been a gold mine. Somebody's still painting it or is it for admirers? Of course. Also here, look how cool, so unique. And bamboo, what do you call these things again? Scaffolding. Scaffolding. Look how beautiful, look what I found. oh we're so silly this is the street where we were earlier but we didn't walk all the way in and here's so much more beauty so we kind of did a little loop but definitely worth it oh alpaca i think it's time to go to peru but very very very cool neighborhood like you have skyscrapers you have more local buildings you have art can we move here here also just saw a painting back there We were there earlier, but also this giant. Also here's some art, so fancy, all the way up, so cool. Wow, oh I think there's a super cool like photo platform. We're now exploring Soho and if that sounds familiar, well just like New York Soho, Hong Kong Soho is named after its location. In New York it stands for South of Houston Street, while here in Hong Kong it's South of Hollywood Road. And just like its New York counterpart, this neighborhood has its own character with colorful street art, little cafes and plenty of things to discover. Also, who needs a stairmaster if you can just live in Hong Kong and have endless stairs everywhere? Passing by a temple. Unfortunately, it's currently being restored. And especially here, it's so striking the contrast of old and new. Behind it, just a huge residential building. and i keep seeing this everywhere. ah so cute we decided to turn here in the corner and there's some beautiful market down there and a kitty. wow so here on the side we have very beautiful antique market i would say and this is the cat street that's the name of it actually so let's see if we found any cats here. love vinyls have our vinyl player at home So cool. If you're into that, if you have an apartment where to put all of this. We have successfully located the cat on Cat Street. That's right. Hello. Test on touch. But I give you a 360 of the car. Is that your car? Gabri just walked into this shop and I have to tell you it smells amazing. They have all sorts of spices. This one is a proper tiger. Oh, there's a vinyl store on the other side, I think this is like a restaurant place, let's check it out. I love the vibe, looks cool, Casa Iberica, wow, that was a delicious stop, 110 Hong Kong dollars for the platter felt a little bit small but delicious like good quality hence the price and our Seat is already taken, so I think you have to be a little bit lucky to get seating and it's also a bar It's open until nine. They have wine, they have everything, very quiet corner Which I love and also down here so much art so many cool restaurants, so many cool cafes I thought this walk would take us like an hour We've been here for four hours just walking back and forth because I take videos and pictures of everything Actually thinking to buy a camera today or tomorrow for photography specifically we'll see i would love that oh my god this lady is walking her cat what an icon what a cute kitty well known, very well known, well known he's the manager of this, what does the name mean What does that mean? Bao Bao? treasure, treasure, okay and finally after hours of walking it's time to hop on a ding ding We found a spot. It's supposed to take us to Kennedy Town. I believe that's the name. This one's purple. Ah, it's coming in. Hopping on. There we go. I was about to say that it's really, really full. And I got a seat. So lucky. So special. I love it. Honestly, riding these little trams is such a fun way to explore Hong Kong. You get to sit back, watch the city pass through the windows and see so many different parts of it in a way. And we just hopped off, there it goes. I think back there is like a famous spot where many photographers go to take like a cool zooming picture, but we want to see the skyline. Wow, I've never seen views like that before in a city. And the bridge. I am in awe. Beautiful. Wow. This must be my most favorite view ever. The mountains are so beautiful. We got lucky it's not super cloudy. Wow. I'm truly so grateful for this first day in Hong Kong and I can't wait to explore even more with you over the next few days. I'll see you in the morning. Wow and we made it up here to what feels like the top of Hong Kong. We are on Bremer Hill. It was quite a workout honestly. There is Victoria Peak somewhere on the other side but it seemed a bit too easy because you could just like take public transport to get there and here I was getting curious. I saw some locals on Instagram posting about this place and it was such a interesting and peaceful way up. We tried to get a bus, but every bus that was passing us was full, so we walked for a bit, there were stairs, there were beautiful views, like cool buildings and stuff like that, but the stairs were really a workout and then the hike started, it was very cool, we saw some insane spiders, like two different types, very scary looking and yeah, after like... 20 minutes of hiking, we went the wrong way once, we made it up here and the views are just so amazing. You see everything, you see all of the hills, you see the area where our hotel is, you see everything. It's so beautiful, it's a very cloudy day but it makes it look so dramatic. While we're taking the views I'm gonna try and find the exact geolocation so if you are up for a hike you can come here. Preferably sunrise, sunset, clear skies. It's definitely very rocky, very scary. And this is the name of the place, very cool. Really curious to see how the other islands of Hong Kong look like, like Lamma Island, I think that's how you pronounce it, and other ones. Everything looks so beautiful, everything looks so interesting, like if you're into hiking, there's so many options here, but not this time. We only have a couple of days in Hong Kong, we'll be back for sure. Honestly, it might be a place I would want to move to someday. All righty, we just sat down here at Dim Sum here in the Yau Ma Tei area, well at least that's the metro station close by, or actually Jordan metro station is the closest, and it's so busy, the entire place is full, it's morning time, it's breakfast time, it's a recommendation from a friend of mine, so we're currently studying the menu, just planning to pick a couple of small dishes and just try everything, and I'm excited, but it's pretty cool, you tick whatever you like so it's a very easy ordering process a hard choice is hard choices if you're wondering what this big pot is you have one second to guess it's tea Let's see. and it's very delicious very nice and you have basically have unlimited tea which is pretty cool i also ordered myself a cold coffee and tea mix which i've never heard before so we'll see how that tastes and also if you're wondering what dim sum means it's basically like a Dining experience where you literally have a bunch of little bites. We already got our bill, by the way, before I forget to mention. This is the price. You can pause it. And also, oh, food is coming in, like, hot. One after the other dish. As an info, there is a $5 table charge per person for the tea. So you better drink your tea. And it's also really delicious. And one dish already arrived. And also my coffee, milk tea came. So excited to try. Wow, really good. It has a very strong flavor. I love it. I might like this more than regular iced coffee. Mm-hmm. Me too. I have to admit, we already ate half of it. It's so good. It's gone in a millisecond, but that's what to expect. And we got a stuffed aubergine, is that how you pronounce it, eggplant, whatever, with I forgot the fish name, mud carp I believe, never had it before so really excited to try it. I'm not the biggest fan of fish, like I'm a very simple fish person, salmon and tuna, everything else is a bit out of my league, but decided to try some new things. Really good. I just dropped the sauce in your teeth. I'm so sorry. Next meal made it. I need a tea. To adjust my chopsticks. Made it here. Wow it's a super like gelé like consistency. With the dumpling, the paper, the dough. This might be my favorite so far. I just love shrimp a lot. I think I'm gonna continue eating with the spoon. Please don't judge me. Watch me. But, I do recommend it. It's kind of an overused term now, but like, mud there. Come up to me. This is not some ballad song, guys. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Terraman is a big guy and he's a hungry guy, so all of the small things are not enough to fill him up. Everything so far, 10 out of 10. Prices, now that I think about it, is actually pretty fine. Like this is HK$39, so around 4.55 USD. Amazing, big portion, smells amazing, got some carbs, some protein, everything else was like 2-3 euros around that. I like it. It sounds like a lot for like a free dumpling because we have been eating at cheaper dumpling places in China and Hong Kong, but the quality is just... So we're gonna enjoy this now. I hope you check out Dim Sum here and let me know down below how you liked it. And we have made it to quite a famous spot, especially for photography, the Monster Building complex. And it is quite impressive. But I feel like on the pictures and with like the perspective and the zoom, it looks even crazier and the color grading. But what I find fascinating is just the real life around it. Like there's hair salons, shops, a restaurant, a gallery, so many different things, which you usually don't see in the pictures. There's some neon signs on the bottom here, but everybody's just taking pictures, looking up and it is super, super cool. But I think what's even cooler is just thinking about how many people live here. And it's just a real neighborhood. And also a different building. We saw when we hopped off the bus here. Looked very similar. On the bottom you had the market. And then the crazy buildings around it. Super dense, super high. Lots of people living here. I think it's very fascinating. And well, we're just gonna enjoy the area a bit. Take some pictures of course. Check out my Instagram. Very impressive. And when you look closer, you realize that behind every single one of these windows, there is a home. Hong Kong's housing situation is something I'd really like to understand better, so if you're from here or you maybe know more about it, I'd love to hear your perspective in the comments. Today is a beautiful sunny morning. We're here on Nathan Road, not far away from our Airbnb. And well, it's busy. We just saw this stall. My boyfriend is currently translating the menu. Just want to grab something to eat. For me, please, the triple sauce rice rolls. You can just take a picture and show her. And you can pay cash, WeChat or Alipay. We'll go with Alipay. Okay, thank you. All right, breakfast secured. So excited. This is what I got, so good. Alright, let me give you a little taste test. Nice. Mmm, I really love it. Sesame seeds. It really feels right now like I'm having a picnic, because it's so quiet and peaceful here. We have the palm trees around, sun is coming out finally. We had some sunny days, we had some grey days. Also, my boyfriend picked up this zero sugar drink. It's really good, if you're looking for something to try. All right, we're gonna enjoy that now. We're spending the morning around Yau Ma Tei, one of the older neighborhoods on the Kowloon side and this is actually where our apartment is too. I really like the side streets here with little paintings and older apartment buildings and people going about their day. It feels like a very different side of Hong Kong compared to central especially. And we're actually just walking along Temple Street, it's very fun during the day, but we're only on our way to the bus stop to explore a different area. But I'm excited to see how it will look in a couple of hours when it gets dark. And here's a little glimpse of that. It's so fun and we even picked up some magnets. But now let's jump back to our sunny day. The market has actually been around since at least the 1920s, making it one of Hong Kong's oldest and most traditional night markets. And now we are on Shanghai Street. Waiting for our bus and I think it's just so cool. Many of the streets here have international names. We have Shanghai Street. I just thought here was Saigon. And it's really interesting to just walk around and find these little details. Hey, it turns out number three is this. Very cute. In my home country called Marshrutka. If you choose to pay cash, he doesn't offer any change. So bring the right amount or give him a tip, I guess. Or the octopus card is accepted everywhere. Honestly, I still haven't figured it out. I don't know if I mentioned it already but before coming to Hong Kong, get yourself an octopus card. You can pay with it everywhere, transport, payment. Seems very great. We did a bit of shopping and I didn't film much along the way but before we spend it all, let me show you what Hong Kong dollars look like. So pretty. We're gonna spend them now guys. We're leaving soon so before we leave, look how beautiful. Wow. Thanks, my dealer here. This is so cute. They don't want to look at that. And my favorite. Ta-da-da-da, action. Actually, I'm gonna keep one of those. So beautiful. All right, buying a microphone now. We also stopped by SimCity, a well-known camera mall with literally four floors. We ended up spending hours walking around and checking out all the different shops. I've heard that Hong Kong has some of the best camera prices in the world, so I felt like I had no excuses not to get one. And I'm so happy because I finally got my dream camera. Now it's time to head to our final stop of the day. As you see it is pretty gray and dark on the one side because it's just that day. On the other side it is about to be sunset time. Here we are at the Avenue of Stars just going for a walk. Super beautiful like just looking at the buildings. Very very impressive skyline. Usually I'm like not super a fan of big cities because they are kind of skyscrapers, everything the same. But this one feels really special because you have the hills in the background, the mountains. I really, really like the skyline. This might be my favorite skyline in the world. I'm not sure. But yeah, the boats, the ferries going all around. Such an amazing skyline from the water. But also on this side, wow. We have an impressive Shangri-La back there, a nice hotel, tons of cool buildings. But overall, the vibe is great. People are going for a run. There's fishermen. I don't know what to do. Cool. Wow, what cool buildings. I love to have an apartment up there. Wow and here just such nice chairs. Here is even more epic, so cute. Definitely a very nice date spot if you're in Hong Kong. Looks like a mall. Musea, K11. Wow we have some Gucci. Wow and look at this view back there. Isn't that so special? Of course, Louis Vuitton, but also a Ferris wheel. Wow, everything is lighting up, looks beautiful. It's fun. Oh Yeah, this is amazing. So fun. Have fun! Regent, looking good. Let me go around and now grand reveal. Ta-da! That's so fun, like so epic. It's really big. So here. We have like an amphitheater. Oh hello he got a new lens. Did I tell you already? So nice. Took amazing pictures and videos with it. No pictures only videos. Sure you can see them on my Instagram account the non-existing pictures. Subscribe to my YouTube channel. Wow. Finally also some palm trees. So beautiful. YMCA. You see the building in the back? Dope. So cool! I love the tower in the fog. This area was such a fun surprise. You've got palm trees along the waterfront, this beautiful old clock tower and this enormous skyscraper with its light show. But now it's time to hop on the ferry one last time. Yay! Yay! And just like that, unfortunately, our time in Hong Kong has come to an end. I'm so grateful for all the new memories and I hope I could give you a little glimpse of what the city has to offer. So is it the New York of Asia? I can definitely see the similarities, the big city energy, the mix of cultures and all the opportunities but Hong Kong really is a city like no other and I already know I'd love to spend more time here. Who knows, Maybe I'll even live here one day. Either way, I'll see you again in the next one.