SILKEN SOJOURN

WITH THE RIGHT ITINERARY, HONG KONG IS THE ONLY STOP WORTH MAKING

- BY MAYUKH MAJUMDAR

THERE IS A GOOD CHANCE YOU fell in love with Hong Kong long before your plane ever landed at Chek Lap Kok. Perhaps it was the rain-slicked glamour of Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love. Or maybe it arrived through the pages of Janice YK Lee's The Piano Teacher or Richard Mason's The World of Suzy Wong. Or maybe it was simply the idea of it—that colourful, electric skyline rising out of the South China Sea, all neon and steel and harbour fog, a cyberpunk paradise with ancient roots.

Hong Kong has long been one of fiction's most glamorous muses, living rent-free in our collective imagination for decades. Which is why, when the chance arrives (even if it's just a layover, even if it's only eight hours) the answer is obvious. You go. Because what other cities struggle to deliver in days, Hong Kong aces in a matter of hours. All you have to do is say yes.