Destinations

The ritual surrounding afternoon tea at The Peninsula — an event that always seems to make those 100 things to do before you die lists — is like watching an elaborate dance: the waiters never hurry, despite the queue for a table that snakes out the door, and alongside the luxury stores outside (Prada and Versace have numerous size zero clothes — here, it seems, and on Rodeo Drive, are the tiniest women on the planet).

Just like Manhattan, the best way to see Hong Kong is on foot. And so I decide to take two very different guided tours: one relentlessly urban, the other romantically rural. The first is an architectural walk through the glass and steel cathedrals in which is worshipped the biggest religion of the Far East: money. On Saturday morning, I find myself at the Planning and Infrastructure Exhibition Gallery. I love skyscrapers, the Machu Picchus of our own (probably equally doomed) civilisation. I've taken similar tours through Manhattan and Chicago, and there really is no better way of understanding a city than to appreciate it through the eyes of its architects.

We start at the HSBC HQ, designed by Norman Foster in 1985, wind our way using the Central Elevated Walkway (so clever — the commuters rushing to work don't have to compete with traffic) to gaze at the round windows of Jardine House, and finally end up at the Bank of China, designed by the Chinese-American architect IM Pei, the man who gave us the Pyramids at the Louvre in Paris. Outside, the edges are sharp, like the blade of a knife — the building created a stir when it was approved, as it had no curves, considered essential in Chinese culture, and did not seek the approval of feng shui masters first. Inside, the building is hollow, like a piece of bamboo. As long as you take your passport, you can whizz up to the 43rd floor to drink in the view. Right next to it is the International Finance Centre, the seventh highest building in the world, with its spectacular crown.

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