Repulse Bay

Coming from Mexico, where beach days are basically a given, I didn’t think Hong Kong would offer much competition. Repulse Bay proved me wrong within about an hour. The bus ride over from Central takes you up and over the island’s spine, through dense forest, and then drops you down the other side into this wide crescent of pale sand with genuinely clean, swimmable water — a strange juxtaposition after a week of neon and concrete, and one that most first-time visitors skip entirely because it doesn’t fit their mental image of the city.

The beach itself sits below a wall of expensive high-rise apartments, some of the priciest real estate in Hong Kong, which gives the whole scene an odd texture: families barbecuing on the sand with a helicopter pad visible on a penthouse roof above them. It shouldn’t work aesthetically and somehow it does, mostly because the beach is genuinely well maintained, with lifeguards, showers, and food stalls that don’t feel like tourist traps.

At the southern end of the beach is a small shrine complex dedicated to Tin Hau, goddess of the sea, and Kwun Yum, goddess of mercy — giant, brightly colored statues, a lucky wishing well, a bridge you’re meant to cross for good fortune. It’s kitsch in the most sincere way, clearly built for locals rather than tourists even though tourists have since found it, and fishing families still come to pray here before heading out to sea. Lia lit incense at the smaller shrine while I watched an older woman toss coins into the wishing pool with the kind of practiced flick that told me she’d done this a thousand times before.

The Verandah restaurant nearby, in the old colonial-era Repulse Bay Hotel building, does a proper afternoon tea if you want to make a full day of it — white tablecloths, ceiling fans, the kind of faded grandeur that photographs beautifully even if the food is fairly ordinary for the price.

When to go: April through June for warm water without peak summer crowds. Weekday mornings keep the beach nearly empty; weekends from June onward get genuinely packed with local families.