china

China cabinets are an extension of who you are and what you’ve done, displayed for everyone to see. That statement may seem a little extreme, but a china cabinet should reflect your inner self and your experiences. Therefore, choosing the right china cabinet can be a tough endeavor.

Beyond finding a home for your family heirlooms, china cabinets allow you to put your contemporary treasures on display. One type of china cabinet that is perfect for displaying purposes is a curio cabinet. A type of cabinet designed to display your most valuable possessions, curio cabinets can house trophies, collectibles, travel souvenirs, china and silver, or whatever is most precious to you. Many china cabinets come with mirrored backs that show off your treasures even more. You can also find china cabinets with built in lights for the same purposes.

China Cabinets are not a thing of the past. The china items you own may be something your great-great-grandmother passed down to you, but they are definitely not something to hide away in the back of a closet. You probably don’t use antique china for everyday dining, and most likely are a little bit wary of people handling it – especially if you have small children whose little paws, as we all know, can do a lot of damage. China cabinets are the perfect way to protect your treasures from dust, dirt, and of course clumsy fingers, while still allowing them to be accessible and displayable. Many china cabinets also come with a locking feature, adding even more of a security measure.

If you are looking for a cabinet to house your china, an antique china cabinet may be the way to go, instead of something more contemporary. The design of antique china cabinets is reminiscent of eighteenth and nineteenth century models, when china cabinets were just as important in a home as a couch is in our houses today. The detail of an antique china cabinet is exquisite. Many have hand crafted features, brass hardware, elegant cornice molding, quality dovetail joints and carved solid woods, select veneers, and graceful finishes. Darker woods, such as oak, mahogany, walnut, and cherry are also more common in the construction of antique china cabinets.

Contemporary china cabinets still respect the traditional style but might better suit your home décor. Constructed mostly of lighter woods and finished in colors like espresso, white, beige and black, and even some built in brass, contemporary china cabinets can easily be matched with other modern furniture. Made with straighter lines and most often more simple designs with plenty of glass, contemporary china cabinets will suit a modern home, and won’t be the only thing in the room that sticks out.

Shapes and dimensions always come into play when it comes to making the most of your space and the overall feel of your décor. Corner china cabinets and corner curio cabinets are a perfect choice for opening up a space, because, as their name suggests, they can fit neatly into a corner. Also, china cabinets can come with closed storage to keep your living space tidy, and to house the valuables that you want to keep safe, but don’t necessarily want to put on display. Some multi-purpose china cabinets come with built in wine racks. Most china cabinets have adjustable shelving options. Find out what is important to you, what you want to show off to your guests and what you want to keep safe. Find out what style you want to accentuate your décor and where it will fit in the room. Once you have answered these important questions, you will have a better idea of what type of china cabinet will suit your needs.

Visit More China Cabinets to choose the right cabinet for you.

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China is a vast and sprawling land home to countless groups each with its own culture and traditions. But for all its diversity, certain threads run through China's long history - dragons, jade, silk, porcelain, to name a few. To examine the facets of China, we'll look at 3 of its repositories of ancient tradition - Shanghai Museum, Beijing Jade Museum and the Hong Kong Heritage Museum.

Shanghai Museum is home to a fabulous collection of ancient Chinese art in its 11 galleries and 3 exhibition halls. The permanent galleries showcase artifacts representative of the major sections of Chinese art, namely, ancient bronze, ancient ceramics, paintings, calligraphy, ancient sculpture, ancient jade, coins, ming and qing furniture, seals, and minority nationalities.

A look through Shanghai Museum allows you to see the many innovations of the Chinese. For example, China was one of the first countries to use money as a medium of exchange. The Gallery of Chinese Coins contains almost 7000 exhibits of early coins.

China's celebrated ceramics on display at the Shanghai Museum include tri-colored pieces from the Tan Dynasty and blue, white and black glazed and pointed porcelain from the Song, Jin and Liao dynasties. A visit here is a must for any connoisseur of Chinese culture.

Other quintessentially Chinese treasures you can see at Shanghai Museum include Chinese seals. The latter are stamps containing Chinese characters that were imprinted on documents, contracts, and works of art to prove identity and authenticity. The oldest ones date back 3000 years.

And now to our second museum, the Jade Museum in Beijing's forbidden city, once the Chinese imperial palace from the mid-Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. Since 1924, it's housed the Palace Museum which houses an extensive collection mainly from the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Jade has been central to Chinese culture for millennia. In ancient China it was referred to as "the essence of heaven and earth" and "the royal gem". Its value surpasses event that of gold and for the Chinese it symbolises nobility, perfection, constancy, and immortality.

The jade collection at the Beijing Jade Museum is a wonderful place to admire items made from this most Chinese of materials. The display comprises around 30000 pieces, with the earliest dating from the Neolithic period.

Hong Kong is a very special part of China as from 1841 to 1997 it was administered by another country, Britain. During these 156 years of colonial rule, Hong Kong developed from a fishing village to the economic and financial powerhouse of Asia. Today's Hong Kong still has a frantic boomtown feel but also offers oases of calm in the form of parks, temples an islands. To explore the past of this special place, visit the Hong Kong Heritage Museum in the Sha Tin disctict.

Housed in a 3-storey purpose-built structure that has the form of a Chinese ancestral hall, Hong Kong Heritage Museum features 6 six permanent exhibition galleries - New Territories Heritage Hall (with models of traditional shops and a Hakka fishing village), Children's Discovery Gallery, Cantonese Opera Heritage Hall, T.T.Tsui Gallery of Chinese Art, displaying artifacts from the former Tsui Museum of Art, and the Chao Shao-an Gallery. There are also six thematic galleries for temporary exhibitions.

It's easy to get overwhelmed in China and get the feeling you leave knowing less than when you arrived. But visit these great museums in China and you'll find this great country is not so inscrutable after all. Before travelling to China, make sure that the hotel reservations are in place. China/Beijing/>Hotels in Beijing and hotels in Hong Kong can easily be booked in advance through the Internet, and then you will be able to enjoy China at the best.

Richard has over 20 years experience in the travel industry and writes for Cheaper than Hotels. Cheaper Than Hotels offers cheap China/>hotels in China.

Traditional Chinese festivals range from the quiet and dignified to colourful free-for-alls with booming gongs and cymbals and frantic dancers in dragon and lion costumes. Most are based on the Chinese lunar calendar and so the actual date differs from year to year.

Confucius's birthday First we'll look at the birthday of Confucius in September. Though celebrated all over China, you can best experience this event in Confucius's home of Qufu, specifically at the Confucius Temple. Confucius is revered in China for being a thinker, social philosopher and teacher. He spent his life in poverty and relative obscurity, and his teachings were only written down and disseminated by his disciples after his death. Celebrations for Confucius's birthday start at 4 a.m. in the Confucius temple. Ceremonies are modest as befitting a man who taught moderation. Celebrants pay their respects and offer flowers at the temple altars. Festivities can also include musical performances with traditional instruments, together with dancing and the wearing of traditional costumes.

Beijing International Kite Now to Beijing for an event of a very different kind, the Beijing International Kite Festival held in April, the windiest month in the Chinese capital. Kite flying has been a part of Chinese culture for millennia both as a leisure activity and a tool in warfare. Wei Fang in Shandong province is the major kite flying area in China but Beijing holds an annual international kite festival. Starting off with a colourful ceremony, the Beijing International Kite Festival showcases fine examples of kites from the last century and experts talk about their features and regale visitors with kite lore and anecdotes. The event attracts kite-flying teams from all over the world.

Chinese New Year Finally to Hong Kong to the biggest bash in the Chinese festival calendar, Chinese New Year. It's a time of wailing Chinese opera performances, pounding drums, fireworks and feasts, writhing lions and dancing dragons, fortune telling and grand parades. Chinese New Year starts on the first new moon day of the year and ends with the Lantern Festival fourteen days later. It falls between mid-January and mid-February. It's a time when the industrious Chinese put their feet up for a few days of family reunion, thanksgiving, feasting and going to temple. People clean their homes and hang red lanterns out front. Veneration of ancestors is at the heart of Chinese New Year. On New Year's Eve, they are offered a Banquet at the family dinner table. In Hong Kong the festival kicks off with a parade between Admiralty and Wanchai, a grand firework display over Victoria Harbour, and the territory's skyscrapers are lit up more than usual and decorated with lights and motifs. The temples are busy and the red envelopes known as Lai See containing "lucky money" are given to family and friends.

If you're lucky enough to be in China on festival day, you have a treat in store. Not only will you have a great deal of fun, but you'll witness something very special in the lives of the people. The only difficulty with visiting the events in Canada might be your accommodation. Be sure to have a reservation, because China/Beijing/>Beijing hotels or Hong Kong hotels could be fully booked during the festivals. Of course the Internet offers many opportunities to book China hotels in advance.

Richard has over 20 years experience in the travel industry and writes for Cheaper than Hotels. Cheaper Than Hotels offers cheap China/>China hotels.

Yunnan, China by Tom Carter

While China's northeastern parts such as Beijing and Shandong may represent the historical heart of the People's Republic, it's in the west where we find a unique cultural diversity that is so attractive to travelers.

Nowhere else in the country might one uncover the splendor of China's varied minority population than 'south of the clouds,' Yunnan. Situated on the southwestern corner of four other provinces, Yunnan also shares borders with three countries (not quite including Thailand and India), its proximity resulting in the highest concentration of ethnic groups in all of China.

However, with the northern Naxi city of Lijiang having become China's hottest holiday destination for tour groups, nearby Dali a laidback retreat for younger backpackers, and Zhongdian a jumpig off point for Tibet, south Yunnan remains a relatively unspoiled region.

From the concrete jungle of the provincial capital city of Kunming into the rain forests of Xishuangbanna, this writer bypassed the more popular route towards Laos and Vietnam for the less-explored areas around the Burma perimeter. My timing was perfect, as I arrived in the village of Menghun just before its Sunday market.

A quiet community accented with stilted wooden homes and a hilltop monastery overlooking the surrounding rice fields, the day's drizzly weather served to enhance the village's reticence. But through the gray I caught glimpses of color that revealed thselves to be the region's multiple ethnic minorities.By mid-morning, Menghun's relatively small marketplace, abounding with freshly slaughtered pig heads, brilliant fruits and vegetables, plugs of tobacco and a rainbowof textiles, became a veritable kaleidoscope of culture unlike any I have every witnessed. I was first met by the silky glory of Xishuangbanna's majority population, the Dai, a 2000 year-old culture that fuses HinayanaBuddhism with elements of Thai. The Dai dress attractively in shimmering attire, but it is the younger Dai girls in their formfitting pastel sarongs who catch one's eye before teasingly runing away like nymphs.

Further illuminating the otherwise dark day were the Akha people, known as the Hani. Like a resplendent yet elusive jungle bird, the Akha appear from the deep lush hills only on market day, whence they adorn themselves in heavy layers of black brilliantly highlighted with intricately embroidered patterns. Descendants of the nomadic Qiang from Tibet, each Hani subgroup wear a different colored headdress to signify their tribe, not unlike the plumage of a proud bird, and lavishly accessorize in silver-studded bracelets and leggings, patchwork satchels and antiqued coins stretching out their earlobes. Tumpline baskets around their heads and teeth stained red with betel nut are commonplace.

Especially weary of outsiders, they timidly skirted all my advancements, however friendly persistence coupled with a sincere interest in their lifestyle soon granted me access to a tight knit Akha clan. They spoke very little Mandarin, and of course no English, so we relied simply on gestures and smiles in an attempt to learn about each other.

By noon the market had cleared along with the rain, the streets now lined with vivid knots of indigenous folk awaiting tractors to take them back to their respective outlying villages.

My continued journey through Xishuangbanna Autonomous Prefecture would take me deeper into the surrounding tropical jungles, including a 50km trek from Bulongshan to Damenglong. But those are stories for another time. For now I will reminisce over that small yet colorful town of Menghun, for nowhere else have I ever witnessed such a definitive representation of China's beautifully proud ethnic minorities.

Tom Carter, a freelance writer and photographer from San Francisco, has lived in China the past two and a half years. He is currently backpacking through all 32 Chinese provinces.

Transportation

1) From Kunming's main bus station on Beijing Lu, express leeper busses to Jinghong, capital of Xinshuangbanna, daily at 6:30pm (150yuan, 15 hours).

2) Shuttles from Jinghong to Menghun leave the No.2 Bus Station every 20 minutes between 7am and 6pm (15yuan, 2 hours).

Accomodation

In Mengun there are several small boardinghouses, luguan, located on the main street near the bus stop (20 yuan each). A backpacker's favorite is Baita Fandian (White Tower Hotel, 10 yua for a bed) on the outskirts of town and overlooking a lily pond teaming with fish and frogs. Directions are complicated so it's best to ask locals to point you there

Regional cuisine

Rice is the staple diet of the Dai people, who were the first in the history of the world to cultivate rice as a food. Sticky rice baked in fragrant bamboo is a specialty. Xishuangbanna locals also enjoy nibbling on grilled pigtail from street vendors, and perpetually chewing on betel nut (binglang) mixed with lime, which gives off a light narcotic effect while staining the mouth red.

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Tom Carter of San Francisco is an internationally published freelance photographer and travel writer specializing in the People's Republic of China. Tom has traveled extensively throughout all 33 Chinese provinces and autonomous regions and currently resides in Beijing.

Xinjiang, China by Tom Carter

"He's from Pakistan.""No, no! He's Japanese." A lively group of Uyghurs orbiting around me at the Hotan marketplace in southern Xinjiang were vociferously debating the nationality of the 196cm foreigner standing before them.

I am in fact a first-generation American of a hybrid Scandinavian-Mediterranean-Hispanic lineage, my dark brown features and unkempt travel whiskers often causing confusion amongst Asians who can't quite place my nationality. Ironically, Han Chinese often mistook me for a Weiwuerzu someone from Xinjiang.

If there is one province unlike any other in the People's Republic, it would have to be Xinjiang. Categorically different from the rest of the country in every conceivable way, the Muslim-dominated Xinjian in the distant northwest is at once China's most intriguing and intimidating travel destination.

Xinjiang Autonomous Region is China's largest, sharing international borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan andcentral Asian countries. This geographical proximity resultingly accounts for over half of China's 12 million Muslims, perhaps Xinjiang's most obvious characteristicMuslim followers of Islam, the second largest religion in the world, are a devout people who believe in the oneness of God, called Allah in Arabic, as opposed to the Christian doctrine of a holy trinity. Muslim adherents can be seen throughout Xinjiang carrying venerated copies of the Qur'an (Islamic holy scripture) and faithfully dashing off to he mosque five times a day for a congregational series of Mecca-facing prostrations and prayer.

Xinjiang's predominant nationality is the Uygur, a vibrant and outgoing culture of Central Asian descent whom this writer affectionately likes to refer to as The Desert People. The Turkic-speaking Uyghurs traditionally attire themselves in simple, loose-fitting robes to accommodate the harsh climate, with the men wearing either plain white or brilliantly embroidered dopi skull caps and the women veiling themselves in a hijab headscarf. A shaved head and long beard further distinguishes the Uyghur men while the ladies take pride and pleasure in dyeing their hands red with henna.

Geographically, Xinjiang offers starkly different topography and climate throughout the vast region, ranging from the cool alpine mountains of the northern Altay region to the arid southern sands of the Taklamakan, the second largest desert in the world. And while Urumqi, Xinjiang's capital, is a gleaming northern metropolis of skyscraprs and department stores, the remote cities bordering the south-western Tarim Basin, including the famed Silk Road oasis of Kashgar, are known for their more traditional way of Muslim life.

Attractions

Situated directly on the borders of Mongolia, Russia and Kazakhstan, the spectacularly sapphire-blue Hanasi Hu Lake in the mountainous region of northern Xinjiang is a popular tour group destination. To the south, the massive Sunday markets in Kashgar and Hotan are not to be missed, though the latter is arguably more authentic.

Transportation

1. From Beijing to Urumqi, 10 flights daily between 8am and 9pm (four hours, 2,410 yuan)

2. To Hanasi Hu, a group tour arranged by any Urumqi travel agency is often suggested for its feasibility, however a majority of time is spent in transit (four days, 500 yuan, including accommodations and entrance tickets)

3. To Kashgar, overnight trains leaving daily from Urumqi at 1pm and 5pm are the most convenient and comfortable way to travel (30 hours, 170 yuan).

4. From Kashgar to Hetian, busses depart from Renmin Donglu almost hourly between 7am and 6pm (eight hours, 50 yuan).

Accommodation

Xinjiang disappointingly offers very little as far as budget accommodations or youth hostels, and due to immigration from neighboring nations, smaller boardinghouses are strict to only allow Chinese nationals. In Kashgar, the Uyghur-run Noor Bish Hotel near the famous Id Kah Mosque is a backpacker's favorite (30 yuanfor a dorm bed).

Regional cuisine

If China is famous for its cuisine, then Xinjiang is responsible for half its success. Heavily seasoned lamb kebab (yangrou chuan), spicy lamian noodles topped with peppers, tomatoes and garlic, deep-fried fresh fish (how did they get fish in the desert?), goat's head soup, golden pilaf rice and fragrant peaches and watermelon, all washed down with refreshing cinnamon tea. There may not be as much bread (nang) in the whole of China as in Kashgar, with lightly seasoned loaves and sesame seed bagels being pulled hot out the oven by the minute.

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Tom Carter of San Francisco is an internationally published freelance photographer and travel writer specializing in the People's Republic of China. Tom has traveled extensively throughout all 33 Chinese provinces and autonomous regions and currently resides in Beijing.

Gansu Province, China by Tom Carter

In these over-publicized times of China's new railroad to Tibet, one might be better off avoiding the tourist circus than rnning away with it. Indeed, unless the reader has a certain fondness for overbooked hotels and intrusive, red hat-wearing tour groups, Lhasa is hardly the Tibetan delight that travel agencies continue to bill it as.

Fortunately, lesser-traveled Gansu province in northwest China offers the cultural charm of Tibet without the crowds. Sharing borders with six other provinces except Tibet, it is physically unobvious that Gansu would be home to any kind of Tibetan population. This, coupled with the great shadows cast by the ever-popular neighboring Sichuan and Shaanxi, results in Gansu being one of China's well-kept travel secrets.The narrowly arching province makes it somewhat inconvenient to traverse, yet it is due to this shapely fact that the northern and southern regions offer dramatically different topography, climate and culture, lending to Gansu's uniquely varying harm.

Situated adjacent to both Xinjiang and Qinghai provinces, the small city of Dunhuang in Gansu's Hexi corridor is famed for its mountain-sized sand dunes and ancient Buddhist grotto cave art. A tree-trimmed oasis emmed by a limitless expanse of sand, Dunhuang, once an important outpost along the Silk Road, is now a travel destination as hot as the outlying deserts.

On the theoretically and geographically opposite end of the province, the mountainous terrain of Xiahe provides a cool, quiet respite from both the sweltering sands and disorderly tour groups of Dunhuang. After threading through verdant grasslands grazing with yak, golden fields of wheat and undulating hills of the contiguous Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, Xiahe suddenly appears beneath the surreal blue sky like a monastic vision.

Of the Gannon Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Xiahe is in fact no more than a simple slat-wood settlement along the Daxia River physically and socially orbiting the impressive Labuleng, mainland China's largest Tibetan monastery. Hugged up against the surrounding mountainside, the picturesque state known also as the Labrang Lamma monastery was built in 1710 and accommodates six Buddhist seminaries and over 500 monks of the Yellow Hat sect.

Buddhists from across the region come to worship at Labuleng, contributing to the colorfulactivity that gives Xiahe its attractive allure. A three-kilometer kora (spiritual walking circuit) halos the area and is heavy with foot traffic from dawn to dusk, whereby crimson-robed monks and natively dressed Amdo pilgrims spinning hand-held mani wheels orbit the monastery while breathlessly prostrating themselves and chanting.

In between turning 1,200 vibrantly painted wooden prayer wheels, the resplendently ornamented nomads rest beneath stupas to chat and sip yak butter tea, a veritable portrait of Tibetan culture.

Visiting the holy capital city of Lhasa on the roof of the world may sound thrilling, but increasing occupation and rampant tourism has rapidly diluted it from the serene getaway it once was. Xiahe, known as Little Lhasa, in the Gansu highlands is a more intimate, and conveniently closer, alternative for those desiring a secluded retreat of unadulterated Tibetan culture.

Transportation

1. Flights from Beijing to Dunhuang Airport, daily at 7:30am (3 hours, 1,880 yuan)

2. From Langzhou to Xiahe, busses leave the North Bus Station at 7am, 8:30am and 2pm (5 hours, 25 yuan).

Accomodation

1. In Dunhuang, the Feitian Binguan located on Mingshan Lu directly across the street from the bus terminal is a popular backpacker hangout, offering dorm rooms and hot-water showers for only 20 yuan.

2. There are a number small inns of varying standards along Renmin Jie in Xiahe, though the Tara and Overseas youth hostels on the west end of town seem to be the preferred choice (25 yuan for a dorm bed).

Regional cuisine

Hand-pulled noodles and thinner beef-noodle soup (saozi lamian) are provincial favorites. Hui-Muslim influences to the north include heavily seasoned mutton/lamb kabob (yangrou chuan), fresh baked bread (nang) and bushels of fragrant peaches and watermelon. Tibetan fare is simpler, including the notorious yak butter tea (po cha), a pungent, thick, salty beverage that Tibetans consume habitually, and Tsampa, a nomadic staple of barley flour kneaded with butter tea to form an edible, nourishing dough.

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Tom Carter of San Francisco is an internationally published freelance photographer and travel writer specializing in the People's Republic of China. Tom has traveled extensively throughout all 33 Chinese provinces and autonomous regions and currently resides in Beijing.

Hong Kong! The legendary Chinese city of life and lights, where millionaires rub shoulders with fresh-off-the-boat immigrants, skyscrapers overshadow shanties and class division are as dramatic as the neon that illuminates it all.

Located on the southernmost banks of the Chinese mainland and pressed against the South China Sea, there truly is nowhere else in the world like Hong Kong, for Hong Kong is the World.

It is the best of Beijing and Bangkok, London and Las Vegas, New York and New Delhi; one of the most densely populated dependencies (a landmass of only 1,000 square kilometers for seven million residents), with one of the world's largest revolving multinational communities. Indeed, a stroll around Tsim Sha Tsui (pronounced jimsawjoy), the city's tourist and trade center on the southern Kowloon peninsula, reveals the entire human race in one square block radius: white people in pastel shorts walking side by side with majestically robed Africans, turbaned sheiks haggling with short-tempered Cantonese vendors, and street-corner Hindu hustlers harassing, well, everyone.

The nucleus of TST's international community is found on south Nathan Road, which buzzes 24 hours a day not unlike a third-world beehive. The thoroughfare is lit up with electronics, hazy with Indian incense and resonant with 200bpm Arabic music. It is a warren of the world, a global party, and everyone is invited. As a tailor from Pakistan profoundly puts it, it's the politicians who draw the borders, otherwise we are all friends here.

And speaking of borders, Victoria Harbor seems a good excuse to divide the colorful crowds of Kowloon with the white-collared world of Hong Kong Island, the territory's banking and finance center. It is across these deep, reflective waters, which at night appear as a veritable liquid rainbow beneath the neon of corporate office towers and designer department stores, where the former crown colony's elite live, work, shop and play. English-speaking Hong Kong, which transferred sovereignty from Britain to the People's Republic in 1997, is 9 percent Chinese save for a wealthier class, namely from South Asian countries and the west, who contribute to the Special Administrative Region's economic might with an unparalleled per capita GDP (310,000 yuan compared to Shanghai's diminutive 47,000 yuan) that rivals most ofwest Europe and is the highest in China.

Hong Kong also happens to boast the most millionaires in the entire Asian continent. They are strikingly handsome or unabashedly beautiful. They attire themselves in dark designer suits with razorblade creases and immaculately shined shoes, or dangerously short skirts and even more dangerous stiletto heels. Every automobile in Hong Kong Island not a red taxi is a Ferrari, new-model Jaguar or a white-walled vintage Mercedes. And lest we forget that they drive on what Americans considerto be the wrong side of the road in the British-influenced Hong Kong, look the wrong way before crossing the street and one could get rolled over by a Rolls.

But all that is gold does not necessarily glitter. Beyond Central's escarpment of skyscrapers and scattered about the region's subtropical perimeter lay over 20 lesser islands that seem to jump back centuries. Lantau Island on the West Lamma Channel preciously hides the rustic minority village of Tai O and the Tanka people, descendants of Hong Kong's first settlers.In stark contrast to Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, there is no place in Tai O for finance, fashion or frenzy, where Ferraris are replaced by fishing boats, peasant bags are more useful than Gucci bags, and flip-flops take preference over Prada. The sleepy fishing community of slat-wood, tin-roofed shanties is built completely atop stilts and interconnected by arched bridges occupied by old timers in reed hats whipping their cane rods into the placid delta waters.

Of course, most visitors to Hong Kong will invariably choose Mong Kok to minorities and 500 dollar dim sum to five-dollar fish balls. The compulsion of capitalism, the passion to purchase and the addiction of appearance-it is what Hong Kong has come to be known for, and frankly, to what it owes most of its charm. "Our lives are just like anyone else's," chirps a manicured blonde, the wife of a Hong Kong banker, shopping in an upscale boutique in the Soho district, "but with a few more attached."

Regional cuisine

HK is the dining table of the world: from traditional Cantonese dim sum to Indian curry, New York delis to Mexican tacos, Thai cuisine to Krispy Kreme, not to mention an overflow of McDonalds (150!) and 7-11 (600!). But be prepared for the prices ̈CYIKES.

Transportation

If you don't drive a BMW, don't despair. Hong Kong's public transportation is highly efficient, with the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) and Kowloon-Canton Railway (KCR) spanning throughout the New Territories, Kowloon, Lantau and Hong Kong islands. Double-decker trams and buses ply above ground while jetfoils and HK's beloved Star Ferry continuously whisk commuters across Victoria Harbor. Or just hop in one of the thousands of red taxis.

Accomodation

For budget-conscious travelers, there is no better (or cheaper) place to absorb HK's multicultural ambiance than the infamous Chungking or Mirador mansions on south Nathan Road in Tsim Sha Tsui. Dorm beds in any of the mansion's hundreds of claustrophobic guesthouses starting at 60 yuan.

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Tom Carter of San Francisco is an internationally published freelance photographer and travel writer specializing in the People's Republic of China. Tom has traveled extensively throughout all 33 Chinese provinces and autonomous regions and currently resides in Beijing.