The Bird Garden is the favourite gathering place for Hong Kong's songbird owners. The market provides them with all manner of creature comforts, from intricately crafted cages to nutritious grasshoppers.

Open space is to be prized in a city as crowded as HongKong, hence the popularity of Kowloon Park, which,though hemmed in by buildings and threatened by developers, offers a welcome respite from the crowds of Tsim Sha Tsui. Once it was the site of the Whitfield Barracks, home to British and Indian troops. Today it's a somewhat artificial creation, at least by the standards of most city parks, located above street level and entered via steps from Nathan Road and other street entrances. Open space jostles for attention with a sculpture garden, chess garden, children's playground, Chinese Garden (with fountains and lotus pond), an aviary of rare birds, sports hall and indoor swimming pool. The park is also home to the Hong Kong Museum of History and close to the city's largest mosque, though the latter is closed to the non-Muslim general public.

Come here to dodge the joggers, wonder at the fishermen - the harbour is famously polluted - and enjoy the constantly changing picture of yachts, tugs and a myriad other boats busying across the water. It's well worth taking this stroll at night to enjoy the spectacle of the city's lights glittering across the water. Note that you can catch a hoverferry to Central on Hong Kong Island from the Tsim Sha Tsui East Ferry Pier, located on the promenade alongside Kowloon's Shangri-La Hotel.

Few places in Hong Kong are livelier than Temple Street, heart of a market whose appeal is enhanced by the fact that it's at its busiest at night. The market's popularity with visitors has driven prices up, so the bargains are not what they were, though most of the food and other stalls are still aimed at locals rather than tourists. If you want to buy mainly clothes, shoes, leather, watches and everyday items then plump for the shops hidden in the streets behind the stalls rather than the stalls themselves.

The market livens up after about 8PM and continues in a frenzy of light, colour and crowds until around 11, though it and other markets in the parallel streets are also open during the day. There are fortune-tellers, street doctors, impromptu performances of Chinese opera and people playing mahjong (listen for the familiar clack of the counters). The famous Jade Market is close by, but shuts earlier in the day, at around 3PM.

Until recently the historical and cultural emphasis of much in Hong Kong has had a largely British bias. This appealing little museum has always bucked the trend, emphasising the history and culture of the indigenous peoples who have occupied the region over the centuries. In it the city's 6,000-year history is traced with a changing selection of exhibits from the museum's large archaeological and ethnographic collections. Highlights include the evocative 19th- and early 20th-century photographs of the city in its pre-high-rise heyday: look out in particular for photographs illustrating some of the catastrophic effects typhoons and landslips have had over the years.

Other eye-catching exhibits include neolithic tools and utensils, a model sampan, a collection of Chinese costumes and the interior of a typical early Hakka home (the Hakka were a northern Chinese people who migrated south and have lived and farmed on the Kowloon peninsula for centuries).

Only recently opened, the 35,880 square foot Chi Lin Nunnery in Kowloon is a fascinating blend of simplicity and grandeur. A Buddhist retreat, it was constructed along Tang dynasty lines, and successfully bridges nearly 1,500 years of construction methods, such as using wooden pegs, rather than nails, throughout its seven linked halls and temples.

The nunnery gardens are a beautiful example of classical Chinese design, creating the illusion of infinite space within a limited area, and offering visitors a serene environment.

Make your wishes come true. In Lam Tusen, near Tai Po, is the Enchanted Wishing Tree. Laden with wishes written on bright red paper, it appears to be covered in crimson flowers. Scribble your dreams onto red slips of paper tied onto an orange with string, then toss them in the air. Tradition holds that if your paper charm catches on the tree, your wish will be granted.