Highlights of Hong Kong

Yung Kee Restaurant: This is a multistory shrine to Cantonese food that’s been serving since 1942. Poultry hanging in the windows outside offers a preview of its specialty: roasted goose. The restaurant also serves thousand-year eggs actually, aged for about 100 days and really not as distasteful as they may sound. Allow plenty of time to study Yung Kee’s three encyclopedic menus: “regular,” seasonal (which is changed every two months) and fixed-price. Servings are more than generous. Prices are reasonable for the quality of the meal. (Geraldine Wilkins / LAT)

Sept. 17, 2003 2:34 PM PT

Nathan Road: For raw, mercantile energy, few places can beat this Kowloon shopping mecca, crammed with tourists, hawkers and gaudy shop signs. Cheaper prices may be found on Nathan’s side streets or farther north, in Kowloon’s Mong Kok district. Harbour City, near the Star Ferry pier a short distance away, may have glitzier designer shops, but how can you afford to miss this scene? Also worth a stop on the way are the crumbling Chungking Mansions, tacky tourist digs with shops and restaurants. (Geraldine Wilkins / LAT)

Lantern Celebration: Hong Kong has extended the colorful Mid-Autumn Festival, celebrated widely in Chinese culture, into a monthlong Mid-Autumn Lantern Celebration, through Oct. 19. The festival extension is one of several special events aimed at boosting tourism after SARS. Others include the city’s first-ever International Musical Fireworks Competition, in October, and the staging of the annual Chinese New Year Parade, on Jan. 22, at night for the first time, with festive illuminations. (Geraldine Wilkins / LAT)

From the promenade of the Hong Kong Cultural Center on the Kowloon Peninsula, visitors gaze across the harbor to the skyline of Hong Kong Island. (Geraldine Wilkins / LAT)