Travel Tales - Island Hopping - Hong Kong

One day during our last visit we took advantage of a beautiful day with glorious blue skies to go and take a trip out to the islands. Our first choice for the trip was Peng Chau but thanks to me making a mistake with the pier number we ended up on the ferry to Cheung Chau instead! Fortunately it did not matter as it was a lovely day for island hopping.

Our daughter was with us and I do not think she or my husband were too happy with me at first, but if I had not made this error we would certainly not have had time during this trip to visit the Japanese Tea House on Cheung Chau. Yes, you read that right, it is called Hometown Tea House and is run by a Japanese lady, Takahiko-san, who has lived in Hong Kong for 28 years. I am not sure how many years the Tea House has been there but it was a delightful place to visit and enjoy a sushi snack and herbal tea. The owner was very friendly and we had our photos taken with her and signed her guest book. It is known all over the world and has featured in several guide books.

We then caught another ferry across to Peng Chau our original destination to try out a restaurent that had been recommend to our daughter. Les Copains d'Abord, a French style Wine Bar, owned by a Frenchman and yes we had Wine, Bread, Cheese, Pate and a cold meat platter. After lunch we went for a walk around a small part of the island.

Our next hop was over to Lantau Island - Discovery Bay  a car free location that is popular with families, especially ex-pats that want to live outside the city. Not even taxi's are allowed into the residential area, you have to walk from the outskirts, or hop on a free town bus that will ferry you further into town. Or if you are very rich you can purchase a golf buggy to get around, numbers of which are extremely limited so they fetch high prices. It was an interesting place to visit, sit with our pre-dinner drinks and do some people watching. Apparently the bay is surprisingly affordable and with a 20 minute 24 hour ferry service connecting it to Central, it has many attractions for commuters. We caught this ferry back to Central ourselves from where it took us longer than the ferry had taken to get home to Mid-Levels, hence one understands why travel to work in the city centre can be easier from the outlying islands, especially Discovery Bay.

Tall Ship Arriving in Discovery Bay at the same time as us.

I hope you enjoyed island hopping with me!

I have only written briefly here about my own experiences and have left the photos to tell the story. I have included a number of links throughout the post which if you click on will take you directly to further information on the place mentioned.  There are over two hundred photos from that day out so you have only viewed a tiny fraction of them here. I also share photos from our travels on  LindyLouMac's World in Photos, or you can view the full album here.

Sources for more information:-

Cheung Chau      Hometown Tea House (scroll down page to find the right section)
 Peng Chau    Les Copains d'Abord      Lantau Island - Discovery Bay 
 Hong Kong Extras - Excellent site with all sorts of information on Hong Kong, including how to reach these places I have mentioned today.

All photos are my own taken in October 2011. 

  All rights reserved by LindyLouMac Photo Collection 

The photos may also be viewed individually in my album entitled - Travel Tales - Island Hopping - Hong Kong at My Flickr.com account.