The Hong Kong Heritage Museum in Shatin is a great place for the whole family to learn about Chinese culture, arts and landscape. The children's section is fully interactive and has a great room with a whole host of toys manufactured in Hong Kong from the 1890s on. The ceramics and art collection provide examples from all periods in Chinese history (2000BCE on). The history of Cantonese opera exhibit was great too.

After a trip to the museum enjoy the walk along the river back to Shatin train station and through New Town Plaza - a shopper's paradise.

There are supermarkets and cheap eats in the Plaza as well as a park and library nearby.

www.heritagemuseum.gov.hk
Che Kung Train station is closest, then a 15-20 min walk from either Tai Wai or Shatin Train station. Or get a 80M bus from Kowloon Tong train station.

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You're in the tropics: it's going to rain. But when it does, you can still see Hong Kong in this breathtakingly modern complex. The display walks you from the geological origins of the island through the dinosaurs, cavemen, ancient dynasties, colonisation, world war two and the final handover in 1997 - all of it an engaging fashion that brings the exhibits to life.

100 Chatham Road South, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong (next to the Hong Kong Science Museum - nearest Metro is Tsimshatsui) Tel: 00 852 2724 9042 hk.history.museum

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For those interested in Hong Kong flora and history, I recommend a visit to Sheung Yiu Folk Museum, in Sai Kung Country Park. This centres around a restored Hakka dwelling built by the Wong clan in the 19th-century, recreated with great care and attention to detail.

The walk to the house takes you along a path through ancient woodlands, in which can be found many of the indigenous plants and herbs used by the Hakka community for a huge variety of purposes,
medicinal, culinary and practical. Entry to the house is free, and you can wander around the rooms and defences at your leisure.

Farming implements and many of the accoutrements of Hakka life have been built solely for this site. Close to the house is an original lime kiln and jetty for bringing in coral: relics of the cement industry that provided an important source of income to the Wong clan.

There are few of these types of heritage site in Hong Kong, and Sheung Yiu receives few visitors - which is part of the attraction.

Pak Tam Chung Nature Trail, Sai Kung, Hong Kong.
To get to Sheung Yiu Folk Museum, take the number 94 bus from Sai Kung town, or the 96R / 289R (which only run on public holidays). Get off at the bus terminus by the Country Park Management Centre, and walk into the park past the traffic barrier. Walk down Pak Tam road until you see a footbridge crossing the river to your right: Cross the bridge and take the path to the right.

Sheung Yiu is closed on Tuesdays, Christmas day, Boxing day, New
Year's day and the first three days of Chinese New Year

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This is a fabulous, much under-visited museum which offers fantastic insights into Hong Kong in the context of Chinese Culture. There is a superb display of pre-British archaeological and cultural artefacts, fantastic recreations of Hong Kong's past, present and possible futures, and some entrancing mock-ups of Chinese opera and theatre.

Not hugely easy to find (hence under-visited) but take the KCR to Shat Tin (New Territories) and then either take a short taxi ride or make your way through the Festival Walk Shopping Mall, heading South and East and you'll come to signposts.

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There's a lot of history squeezed into Hong Kong's 150 years as a British colony, and much of it is contained here at the former Lei Yue Mun Fort. More than just a display of guns and steel, you can get a picture of how Hong Kong came to be what it is today, and see how the garrison used to live and fight.

175 Tung Hei Road, walkable from Shau Kei Wan MTR station; tel: 852 2569 1500
www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/Museum/Coastal/en/index.php

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