From Rory Boland,
Your Guide to Hong Kong / Macau Travel.
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Thanks to its breathtaking skyline, few cities in the world have become so associated with modernity as Hong Kong. Through celluloid and photos, most people's images of the city are of neon advertising, towering skyscrapers and streets teeming with traffic. Hong Kong is a city with one foot firmly in the future.

Skyscrapers

Nothing says Hong Kong more than crowds of skyscrapers. With around 7500 of these glimmering towers, Hong Kong has more than any other city in the world; New York comes in a distant second with roughly 5500. Central's streets have long been shadowed over by skyscrapers, while the redevelopment of the old airport, on Kowloon side, means they will soon bank both sides of the harbour.

• Picture Guide to Hong Kong's Skyscrapers
• IFC Mall - HK's Tallest skyscraper

Malls

Hong Kong and shopping are inextricable from each other, and the city was annointed a shopper's paradise long ago. The local populations insatiable appetite for shopping is catered to by malls of titanic proportions. Massive in scale, Hong Kong has some of the biggest malls in the world, filled with every type of consumer good under the sun. Capitalism and consumerism drive the city, and to see it work you have to see the malls.

• A Shoppers Guide to Hong Kong
• Hong Kong's Biggest Shopping Mall - Ocean Terminal

Nathan Road

All those brightly lit images of Hong Kong, packed with neon hoardings and flashing adverts, tend to come from one place - Nathan Road. The artery into Hong Kong's shopping heart, Nathan Road is filled with these hoardings and to see them by night is impressive. An old Hong Kong joke, and almost certainly out of date, is that if China is out of energy they simply need turn of the lights on Nathan Road and light the whole country.

• A Brief History of Nathan

The Skyline

Linked to both the neon and the skyscrapers, Hong Kong's skyline is possibly the most famous in the world. The banks of skyscrapers along the ever-shrinking Victoria Harbour are collectively breathtaking, most notably when lit up like Christmas Trees. Each night they also play host to the symphony of lights, the worlds biggest fireworks display.

• Hong Kong's Famous Cityscape
• Information on the Symphony of Lights

Mid-Levels Escalator

The world's longest, outdoor escalator, whisks people down from their homes in Mid-Levels to the offices and transport hubs of Central below. Consisting of twenty escalators, the whole trip, top to bottom, takes twenty minutes. Transporting over 50,000 people daily, you can ride this rollercoaster of the future while looking at the busy street life below or hopping off to try one of the many bars and restaurants in the area.

• Pictures In and Around the Mid-Levels Escalator
• Tour Based on the Escalator