Hong Kong with Angelababy: A Local’s Weekend in the Pearl of the Orient

From Cha Chaan Tengs to Dragon’s Back, the Best of the City Through the Eyes of Its Long‑Time Resident

Hong Kong is the city that hits you the moment the plane descends: skyscrapers punching through the clouds, Victoria Harbour glowing below, and the sense that you are landing in a place that feels more like a sci‑fi set than a real city — and yet it is very much real. Model and actress Angelababy (Angelababy Yeung Wing) has called Hong Kong home since she was 13, and her personal guide to the island and its islands offers a surprisingly grounded, lived‑in version of the place that luxury‑hotel checklists and skyline‑obsessed tour guides often miss. Born in Shanghai but raised in Hong Kong, she calls the city a “true blend of East and West,” where British colonial street names, temple‑infused grid streets, and a 24‑hour food culture coexist without seeming to strain. Her picks — from dim sum with harbour views to hikes that feel like wilderness within the city limits — sketch a weekend that balances the frenetic energy of urban life with the quiet moments that make Hong Kong liveable rather than just visitable.​

Start with a Cha Chaan Teng and Dim Sum

For Angelababy, the best way to experience Hong Kong is to eat like a local: cha chaan tengs first, then dim sum. These no‑frills, Formica‑tabled cafés serve breakfast and lunch staples like pineapple buns, milk tea, and egg tarts at knock‑down prices, and they are where the city resets its internal clock every morning. She specifically mentions the newly refurbished Lin Heung Lau, a 1920s‑era dumpling house in Sheung Wan, whose chaotic, tag‑board‑only ordering system and crowds of older locals make it one of the most characteristically Hong Kong experiences you can have. For a more refined meal, she recommends Lung Keen Heen in the Four Seasons hotel on the Hong Kong Island waterfront, where dim sum is served amid views of Victoria Harbour — her order of pineapple buns, barbecued pork buns with pine nuts, and seasonal soup is exactly the kind of “I’m in the mood” ordering that locals pride themselves on. The dim sum ritual, she explains, is less about the food itself and more about the hours spent with family, the gossip traded over har gow, siu mai, and soup dumplings, and the tea that keeps flowing even after the baskets are cleared.​

Shop on Hollywood Road and at PMQ

When it comes to souvenirs, Angelababy steers visitors away from the department‑store gloss of Tsim Sha Tsui and toward Hollywood Road, which Time Out magazine recently named the second‑coolest street in the world for its mix of temples, antiques, galleries, and indie boutiques. The lane runs from Central through Sheung Wan, passing Man Mo Temple (a 19th‑century Taoist temple humming with incense plumes) and the Gods of Creation of the Orient (G.O.D.) shop, where traditional motifs are reimagined as homeware and apparel that you can actually bring home. Nearby, PMQ (Police Married Quarters) houses studios and pop‑ups from local designers, with a Friday‑to‑Sunday night market that turns the former colonial police dorms into a creative souk of jewellery, ceramics, and vintage wares. This is the Hong Kong that thrives in the crevices between the towers: not always photogenic in the obvious way, but rich with the texture of a city that sees its identity in craft as much as commerce.

Hike Dragon’s Back and Unwind at Big Wave Bay

Hong Kong surprises newcomers with how quickly the skyscrapers give way to hiking trails and beaches, and Angelababy leans into that duality. Dragon’s Back, a 6.5‑kilometre loop in Shek O Country Park, climbs above sea‑level ridges with panoramic views of Tai Tam Bay, Lamma Island, and the South China Sea, and then descends to Big Wave Bay, a postcard‑perfect stretch of white sand lapped by turquoise water. The trail is rated as easy to moderate, making it ideal for a half‑day escape, and the contrast between the urban starts and the wild‑land finish is one of the most underappreciated aspects of the city. Angelababy says she likes to take guests straight from the hike to the beach, trading climbing boots for flip‑flops and trading the city’s constant hum for the sound of waves — a transition that, in her words, “feels miles from the city” even though it is all still within the same island.​

Island Hop to Tai O for Pink Dolphins and Shrimp Paste

With 263 islands to choose from, Hong Kong is basically a sea of options, and Angelababy’s pick is Tai O, a fishing village on the western coast of Lantau Island known for its stilt houses and black‑pawed cats that wander the canals like feline locals. The village’s narrow waterways recall Venice on a smaller scale, and the air hangs with the salty tang of shrimp paste, a pungent fish product that finds its way into much of the region’s cuisine. Boat tours leave from the main pier, offering the chance to spot the elusive Chinese white dolphin, which appears pink due to the way blood vessels show through its skin — a rare creature whose presence in the surrounding waters has become a symbol of the region’s fragile ecology. For Angelababy, Tai O is less about ticking off the pink‑dolphin box and more about the quiet rhythm of island life, the way time slows between the arrival of the sampan boats and the evening meal at a family‑run noodle shop by the water.​​

Make Time for Families and Theme‑Park Magic

As a proud mother, Angelababy has strong opinions on what families should do in Hong Kong, and she splits the difference between two giants: Ocean Park and Hong Kong Disneyland. While she clearly enjoys the latter, she reserves real affection for Ocean Park, a combined aquarium, zoo, and theme park on the southern tip of Hong Kong Island that opened in the 1970s and has since grown into one of the largest attractions in Asia. The park is split into two zones linked by a cable car that runs over ravines and ocean views, offering the kind of perspective you rarely get in a theme park. Within the gates, giant aquariums filled with thousands of fish, golden snub‑nosed monkeys, penguins, and — most recently — new baby pandas make for the kind of family‑friendly spectacle that Hong Kongers have been coming to since childhood. For her, it is the balance of education and entertainment, the sense that the city has room for serious animal‑care infrastructure and also for the kind of clown‑costume‑masquerading‑as‑education that children adore, that makes it worth the half‑day spent there.​​

Cultural Calendars and the City’s Rhythm

Hong Kong’s cultural calendar is as dense as its skyline, and Angelababy highlights the big ones that colour the city’s identity: Lunar New Year fireworks over Victoria Harbour, the Cheung Chau Bun Festival, where competitors climb towers of lotus‑paste‑filled buns, and the Dragon Boat Festival races that turn the harbour into a choreographed spectacle of decorated boats and rowing crews. These events are not just for tourists; they are the moments when the city collectively agrees to swap the usual rush‑hour anxiety for a shared ritual, whether that is sky‑firing fireworks or cheering on a crew of paddlers in a dragon‑painted hull. For a visitor, timing a trip around any of these dates means trading some of the city’s usual efficiency for a more theatrical, communal version of itself — one that feels less like a transit hub and more like a living diorama of its own history.​

Hong Kong can seem like a city built for spectacle, but Angelababy’s guide insists that it is also a city built for people who stay. The cha chaan tengs, the hikes, the islands, the parks, and the temples are the places where the city reveals its slower, more human tempo, the one that keeps long‑term residents like her coming back to the same spots, the same slides, the same dumpling houses, even as the skyline around them changes every year.