August 2, 2022
It was the Easter holiday when my friend mentioned the little Dubai of Hong Kong and it sounds new to my ears as I never heard about it before. Hong Kong truly is a great escape with different spots that resemble tourist destinations in other parts of the world. I've been to what they consider the Middle East, Hawaii, Maldives, Venice, and other beautiful spots of Hong Kong.
When I heard and saw the video about this little Dubai, it raised my curiosity and formed my eagerness to visit the place.
You can check this vlog of a Filipina worker here in Hong Kong about Little Dubai.
The place is not really that attractive compared to other parts of HK, but I was more on checking the location of it and why it was called Little Dubai, and I thought that it would be perfect for my travel blog.
One afternoon during the Easter holiday, my friend and I opted to meet and visit this place since we were curious about the place and we were bored to death slacking in our abode.
Located on Hong Kong Island along the Fortress Hill harbor is the East Coast Park Precinct. The place was renovated and opened last year in September to offer locals and tourists another urban waterfront park to unwind with friends and families while overlooking the stunning view of Victoria Harbour.
One of Hong Kong's deepest escalators is also located at Fortress MTR station, and you have to ride on this escalator to exit to the starting point going to Little Dubai.
Since we weren't familiar with the place, we used Google Maps to trace the right way to this waterfront park. If my memory serves me right, that was more or less a ten-minute walk from Fortress Hill, Exit A MTR station.
After a little wandering with some detours and confusion about the route, we reached the waterfront park at five in the afternoon and the sun was slowly settling behind the main attraction building of the place. One of our purposes was to wait for another beauty to behold sunset and we looked forward to seeing this building below light up at night along with the other buildings on Victoria Harbour.
We stumbled upon a wide lawn platform where kids were playing, biking, pets were walking around, and adults were chit chatting. There are benches and shelters too where kids and visitors could rest after a long day playing.
In this area, lounge benches are located where most of the elderly were resting, and some were even sleeping.
There are different outdoor installations of different colors, and mats perfectly designed for kids to play around.
Kids were running, climbing, jumping, and some were playing hide and seek on different square mirror sizes installations. We've seen some teens skateboarding too.
And since it was the Easter holiday, giant easter eggs were scattered around the park, the perfect backdrop for photoshoots.
Aside from the outdoor installations, one reason why people are visiting this place is the relaxing view of the harbor. It is the best place to stay the whole day and wait for the sunset and the main cities of HK to light up at night. Benches are installed in all corners, best for lounging. Different boats of different sizes kept coming and going along the Fortress promenade.
The best attraction of the waterfront park and a new iconic landmark at the heart of the city is the immersive "The Harbour Wave" designed and founded by the famous ARTA Architect architectural studio.
It's a lighting installation that floats along the waterfront that appears in motion with the harbor waves. The story behind its creation is what makes this landmark even more remarkable.
In 2019, billions of plastic bottles were disposed and it even continued up to date. Some are sent to landfills, while some that are improperly disposed end up floating along the harbor. The ARTA Architect have collected those billions of plastic bottle caps and turned them into art.
This floating wave-like canopy is composed of thirty thousand bottle caps of different colors. This landmark isn't just an attraction but was passionately created to raise environmental awareness among the public of what damage plastics can cause to our environment.
No wonder why ARTA Architect won several prestigious awards local and international due to its outstanding architecture designed by heart and with care for the environment. You can check more information about this architectural studio here.
The most awaited part of this park is the lighting up of lights at night that make the harbor even more stunning and colorful. The lights of The Harbor Wave seem to dance in harmony with the real harbor waves.
And different outdoor installations would start to light up as well.
You would feel like there is a Christmas festive and shelters full of dangling lights make the place more romantic. (Of course, with those couples in the backdrop, lol) The shelters seemed to be like a dating place at night, lol.
At eight in the evening, we traced back to the MTR station and this Oil Street caught our attention. Upon searching about it, it's actually an Art Space with different visual arts. A place that I want to visit someday.
Since it was getting late, we opted to just continue to the train station and went back home. That was a worthy afternoon walk. But have you wondered why this park was called Little Dubai? That's because the iconic landmark resembles some Dubai architecture. And who do you think named the place Little Dubai? Based on the photos on the internet, it's not a Hongkonger who named it, but some Filipina Youtubers. The first one probably just named her vlog Little Dubai because it looks like Dubai, and the rest just used the name, lol. You can check it for yourself.
That's all for today's virtual travel tour. See you in my next travel blog. I hope you like it. Gracias!
(All images are mine)
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