Field Notes: Hong Kong; Rough But Real. Hidden Gems, Bustling Streets to Dense Jungle In The Mountains.

Concrete Chaos, Unexpected Inspiration, and a Pocketful of Cash.

I spent a week in Hong Kong recently—one of those trips where everything goes wrong, but it ends up being exactly what you needed.

I based myself in Wan Chai, staying in a cheap hostel that was totally fine... until night three, when a guy in the bunk opposite me started snoring loud enough to register 83 decibels on my Apple Watch. After that, sleep was optional. But maybe that set the tone- this wasn’t going to be a smooth, curated trip. It was going to be real.

And real it was.

From the beginning, Hong Kong hit me differently than other cities in Asia. The pace is fast, the people are in constant motion, and time feels compressed. On day one, I found out my bank card didn’t work anywhere—not at ATMs, not in banks. Thankfully, I’d withdrawn a chunk of cash at the airport, which became my entire budget for the week. Mysteriously, 7/11 still accepted my card, so I leaned on that little glitch in the system like it was a lifeline.

In a place so built-up and densely packed, I found unexpected moments of freedom. The trams- slow, creaky double-deckers sliding through the city—were magic. There was something so cinematic about riding on the top level with the wind in my hair, watching the skyline roll past like a reel of 35mm film. Same with the ferries—crossing the harbour felt like stepping between two worlds. In the middle of all that vertical chaos, I found these soft, open-air pauses. They let me breathe.

I met a European guy based in Taiwan, also staying in the hostel, and we started exploring together. We found abandoned rooftops, forgotten buildings, and sky-high viewpoints that revealed Hong Kong as a glowing motherboard at night. I shot most of my photography after dark, under neon signs, in alleyways, chasing shadows and light. There’s a poetry to the streets here: heavy with energy, but always composed

And then, just like that, you can leave it all. Within an hour, you’re in the mountains, hiking through jungle mist, watching the city disappear beneath you. That duality- the intensity of the urban core and the serenity of nature, left a deep impression.

One moment that really shifted my creative perspective was visiting K11 Musea, a luxury mall in Tsim Sha Tsui created by Adrian Cheng, a property developer and art patron who’s redefining what commercial space can be. This wasn’t just a shopping centre, it was an immersive, living gallery. Sculptures, video art, digital installations, and curated exhibitions were woven throughout the space. I wasn’t expecting to be creatively inspired in a mall, but I was. It made me rethink how public space and consumer space can merge with culture. It was thoughtful, surprising, and oddly emotional. Imagine walking into a mall and feeling like you’re inside a museum, but with people holding bubble tea.

Food was another kind of anchor. I tried 冰奶茶 (bing nai cha)—that strong, sweet iced milk tea that hits with a jolt—and 雙皮奶 (seung pei nai), a smooth steamed milk pudding that felt like a dessert made of silk. It’s in these little rituals that you feel the soul of a place.

The final surprise of the trip was a visit to Meteor Photography Store, a tucked-away camera shop that felt like part gallery, part temple.

Later in the week, I had the chance to meet Wing Shya—a legendary Hong Kong photographer known for his cinematic work with Wong Kar-wai. The meeting came through a mutual friend from Perth, who helped set up a podcast recording. On a completely different day from my Meteor Store visit, we sat down for a quiet, thoughtful conversation about art, identity, and image-making in a changing city. That moment alone made the entire trip feel purposeful—like the chaos had quietly delivered something deeply meaningful.

Hong Kong was hot, hard, fast, and so full of contrast. It didn’t smooth the path for me. It pushed, and in pushing, it helped me find something real. There’s a strange beauty in discomfort when you let yourself move through it.

Sometimes inspiration doesn’t come when things are easy. Sometimes it comes from a slow tram ride through a chaotic city, from the wind off the harbour, from a cup of tea, or from a stranger snoring in the bunk below you to you at 83dB.