Recently in Hong Kong Category

Peter Foreman is the Director of Sales & Marketing at the Sheraton Haikou Resort in China and thelobby.com's expert on the region.

Being a Sydney-sider, I miss, in my opinion, the world's most beautiful harbour, Sydney Harbour. However, on my frequent visits to Hong Kong I am always mesmerized by the evening skyline of Hong Kong and I never tire of the Symphony of Lights show. Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour comes alive with this nightly show that has been awarded by Guinness World Records as the world's largest permanent light and sound show. Laser beams, colored lights and searchlights beam from no less than 44 buildings on both sides of the harbour creating an unforgettable evening. The show is staged to music, vantage points are along the waterfront promenades of Tsim Sha Tsui (Kowloon) or the Golden Bauhinia Square in Wan Chai (Hong Kong Island). For the best seats in town, I reserve a Harbour View Room at Sheraton Hong Kong Hotel & Towers or visit the Sky Lounge on the top floor of the hotel. Arrive early for the window seats and enjoy cocktails and the show together! Cheers!

For Asian travels of a completely different stripe, check out www.hkclubbing.com, a bilingual English/Chinese online guide to Hong Kong's chic and bustling nightlife scene. If you're staying at one of Starwood's several Hong Kong Properties for pleasure, (or are the young-at-heart type who needs to blow off steam on extended business trips), this site, part community and part e-zine, includes a rundown of Hong Kong bars, clubs and restaurants, interviews with bands, DJs and nightlife figures, and event listings so you know what bands are playing and which DJs are spinning. It's a valuable, multilingual resource for international travellers who want to make the scene but can't hack reading Chinese, though be aware that the scene coverage is geared primarily towards electronic music and throbbing, big-ticket megaclubs. If huge crowds and laser light shows are not your thing, it might be best to keep to the "Bars" and "Restaurants" sections. Who knows, if you subscribe as a community member you might even find a date on their personals pages.

Hong Kong is an intense city with multiple personalities--even the uninitiated Westerner can get a sense of the energy flowing through the region from Hong Kong's major pop-culture exports: Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, John Woo. But obviously there is a lot more to a real city than stylish action films.

A British colony won from mainland China in 1841, the British government ceded control of Hong Kong in 1997 to the People's Republic of China. Under some special restrictions imposed by the Communist government, Hong Kong is now a Special Administrative Region with a high degree of autonomy and a capitalist economy. These dichotomies of Eastern and Western, free-market and socialist, Chinese and British have created a dynamic modern metropolis that is quite unlike anyplace else in the world. If you are in the region for business or pleasure, take a look at this Lonely Planet travel guide for an in-depth look at the city. Also useful as a no-cost, no-nonsense rundown is this page at Wikitravel. Located nearby in Kowloon (the northern residential district which is by some accounts the most densely populated place on Earth) is the recently renovated Sheraton Hong Kong Hotel & Towers.

The high tech Le Meridien Cyberport has won the distinction of "Best New Hotel in Asia 2006" from Asian Banking & Finance Magazine. The magazine which was established in 2001 is the highest circulating banking magazine in Asia for retail bankers, distributing over 7,000 copies at publication. The ceremony, held at the Hotel, was officiated by Asian Banking & Finance publisher Tim Charlton, who presented the award to Kenneth Sorensen, the hotel general manager. Designed with modern business users in mind, the hotel features "advanced" work facilities, which include video conferencing and broadband wireless capability, as well as "smart rooms" with ergonomic office spaces, high-quality relaxation facilities and hip bars and restaurants on site where travellers can unwind. It's also the only hotel to have won a contract in Hong Kong's innovative Cyberport development!