Nathan Road, Hong Kong

4 more images

Nathan Road was my last stop in Hong Kong and I must say that by then, I was very exhausted and overstimulated. Back from Ngong Ping and Tung Chung, and having taken the ferry from Central to Tsim Sha Tsui, I needed quite some time to find Nathan Road. There was a lot of construction work going on and my map was bad anyway, so it was easy to get lost.
I finally found it and started to stroll down the road.

Nathan Road is the main shopping road and throughfare in Kowloon. Arriving there, I had the feeling of being in an entirely different world! A hustle bustle of so many different people - it was an extreme contrast of what I had experienced previously in the highly orderly world of the MTR, the tranquil monastery and artificial Ngong Ping village. Loud cars, people talking to me who wanted to sell something, and just hustle bustle everywhere... So many people, lights and fast traffic... I had read so much about Asian cities, and I knew that Hong Kong is only "Asia light", but still I had not expected this. At the end of this exciting and exhausting day, this really was too much. So after some time I headed back to the airport and skipped the laser show that I had planned to see. The calm airport really was the place I longed for now.

2 more images

Nathan Road is one of the main streets in Kownloon and runs North-South between Tsim Sha Tsui and Mongkok.
The street is lines with loads of shops, restaurants, and is a good place if you want some serious retail therapy.

It's a very nice way to soak up the atmophere of Kowloon as its abuzz with Tourist, Locals, Cars, Buses, and general hustle and bustle, but its a good things to experience one of the busy parts of this amazing city.

I would recomment having a nice walk along it, and experience another side of Hong Kong, and to see all the interesting shops its plays host to.

2 more images

Hong Kong maybe a shoppers paradise, but nowhere is it more 'in your face' than Kowloon and the Jordan/Nathan Rds vicinity. Whereas HK Island is a miasma of glass, concrete and air-conditioned shopping plazas, Kowloon offers urban in extremis - traffic, people, pollution, overcrowding, street signs and tall but by HK standards old tower blocks all crowding you in. It's a real experience!

4 more images

Nathan Road is the main road in Kowloon, Hong Kong and goes from Tsim Sha Tsui to Mong Kok. It is famous for its shops, restaurants and tourists.

It was started in 1861 as the first road built in Kowloon after the land was ceded to Great Britain. It was originally named Robinson Road but was confused with a road of the same name on Hong Kong Island. Its name was changed to Nathan Road in 1909 after Sir Matthew Nathan, the 13th Governor of Hong Kong.

The shop signs are unique in the way that they are placed out over the road. This helps produce a wonderland of lights at night.

1 more image

Real most cosmopolitan avenue in Hong Kong. Great at night when neon lights shine in most diverse, wild and flashy colors – in multiple characters and languages, immagine that… and Nathan doesn't feel sleepy. There may be lonely wanderers after midnight, groups of party people returning home, or other men… on unusual businesses, yet that's the globalized world and things are both nice and brutal to some.
When you get hungry… there will be always some shops open. If you want to dine out, evening will the busiest… as well as for shoppers. Make sure you buy wise, and don't be naive.

As we walk that road daily near our stay we learned where most likely you'll be met with men selling fake brands of otherwise 'luxurious' things. And where you'll be handed countless fliers of restaurant, saying they serve the best of their kind of food… where women will tell you to follow them and promise you to get nice real massage – and the other kind of 'massage' not worth to mention. Or countless touts to make you best suits and dresses. Well, myriad of services and things! Be wise, again. You may get yourself even in troubles. Don't let being caught in those 'tourist traps'.

But other than that, yes, Nathan road… it's like magnet, drawing masses of strangers together, feed their drive for consumption and for nice facade… it's eye catching and multicultural, highly populated and comes in all colors and hues you ask for. Your camera will love it.

Nathan Road is a main road that roads straight through the middle of Kowloon and Mongkok, from north to south. It was the first road to be built in Kowloon, in 1861, after the land was ceded to the British following the second Opium War. The road runs for about 4km (2.5 miles) from the Peninsula and Sheraton hotels on Salisbury Road past the infamous Chungking and Mirador Mansions, Kowloon Park (this first section is known as the Golden Mile) before heading on up into Mongkok. It's a real mixture of glitzy posh hotels and crumbling apartments but is lit up with non-stop neon-lit signs and is best viewed at night when walking from the nearby Temple Street Market.

1 more image

Chungking Mansions, built in 1961, has been synonymous in Hong Kong for cheap accommodation, shops and curry restaurants for years. It's a 17-storey, five block, crumbling, ugly heap of a building that certainly won't win any awards for being aesthetically pleasing on the eye. But somehow it's because of all this that it endears you to visit and take a look to see just what it's like (I'll let you draw your own conclusions if you do decide to visit). It sits on near the southern end of the long Nathan Road in Kowloon, right in the heart of where everything happens in the area. Mirador Mansions, just along the road, is of a similar standard.

1 more image

Nathan Road is “recognized the world over” as being a cheap shopping street in Kowloon. With shops lining both sides of the road, and side streets throbbing with crowds, I believe that you would have your work cut out for you to actually grab yourself a bargain in this part of town.

Most of the tree lines street is full of chick and trendy stores that are full expensive items. This made me feel that I could have been in any city in the world, purchasing the same name brands at inflated “tourist prices.”

The street is an interesting walk though and a great way to spend a couple of hours looking around.

Good luck, I hope you have more success than I did.