Fulfilling One of My Childhood Dreams - Visiting Temple Street in Hong Kong

Temple Street in HK - this was one of those places which I heard so much about when I was a kid from everyone, but never had an opportunity to visit it myself. Lots of rumours going around about Temple Street - People did insane things on this street; they cut themselves with knives performing voodoo crafts, dancing half naked, serving crazy food such as snake soups, doves and frog legs and selling lots of incredible cheap things while street performers showcasing their arts and singing with women standing around half cladded selling sex etc. etc. This was an unsavory street and no decent women should visit. My parents forbid my elder sister going there at all and I was too young to be allowed to go anywhere anyway.

This time with more time being in Hong Kong, I was determined to visit this infamous place which I heard so much about. Today, Temple Street is one of these streets often visited by travellors to this city. One the evening we visit, it was a noraml, decent street like any other busy streets with night markets that came alive in HK. However, the scale might be a little larger comparing to other night markets. It occupied a large area and a few of the streets in the Kowloon busy business district.

With numerous stalls lining both sides of the streets, the vendors offered a huge selection of merchandize and items to visitors to Temple Street. Anything you wanted to buy, you could pretty well get it there - clothing and shoes, accessories, lugguage cases, electronics, arts and crafts items, souveniors, watches and jewellry, home decorations, and off course various different types of food! Anything you named it, you could find it there. I could have spent hours there just strolling around and enjoying the atmosphere. It had a party and carnival feel to it and I loved it!

However, I was a little disappointed that we didn't see any of the crazy things that I heard so much about during our recent visit to Temple Street. My husbby told me that this place has calmed down a lot since he last visited there years ago. All the traditional Chinese performances seemed to have gone as the old Chinese artists and performers have aged and not enough young people are taking up the traditional art forms. At the same time, the government has successfully cleaned up the streets preventing any illegal activities taking place there. Today, Temple Street is an interesting busy area attracting many tourists visiting this city. It is a fun place to go and enjoy some shopping and delicious food. We enjoyed our visit and dinner there too. I was glad I finally fulfilled one of my many childhood dreams and visited Temple Street!