When it comes to planning your vacations, there is a wide array of tourist destinations to choose from, but people wanting to enjoy an exotic Asian city with the taste of the Western World, would not look further, and pick Hong Kong hands down.
Even though Macau was a former Portuguese colony, which its historic trace differs from that of Hong Kong, a former British colony, factor that influences the lifestyle of this port city situated on the Pearl River Delta in the south of China, bordering with the former province of Canton (Guangdong) and surrounded by the China Sea.
Due to its geographic location, Hong Kong has been an important trading port since ancient times to the present day. Hong Kong is also one of the biggest cities of the world with 6.9 million inhabitants as of the last census. Trading, however, was the key factor of the territory's British occupation for nearly a century after the Opium Wars between China and the Great Britain that began in 1839 that lead to sign the Treaty of Beijing in 1860 and the leasing of the territory to the Britons for 99 years starting on July 1st, 1898.
When the Treaty of Beijing came to an end in July 1st of 1997 and Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories were returning to China, a new millennium was approaching and everything was uncertainty despite the negotiations on the future of Hong Kong made by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984 granting to the port the assignment of Special Administrative Region of China.
While many locals emigrated to other countries in the 1990s fearing drastic changes in their lifestyle after the Chinese administration would take place, people who stayed in the peninsula has witnessed the arising of Hong Kong as a stronger financial, commercial and tourist center. The magic of Hong Kong when compared with other Chinese tourist destination resides in the historic period of British occupation that amalgamated the best of two different and contrasting cultures into one.
This way, visitors can enjoy a city tour through the cosmopolitan view of the skyscrapers in West Kowloon, the majestic 55-storyey Financial Centre, visiting exotic temples, such as Man Mo Temple and the Wong Tai Sin Temple, or a traditional Chinese Tea House inside a sampan taking a ride around the Victoria or Aberdeen harbors.
Hong Kong is as city with multicolor dragons just everywhere, many of which are outside theaters and venues that host the countless festivals celebrate throughout the year, although many of them take place in public parks or travel through the streets, as the New Year, Lantern, and Mid Autumn Festivals, However there is too much to see in Hong Kong.
