Hong Kong during the beginning of the pandemic

When I was traveling in East Asia, I had a near 19 hour layover in Hong Kong. I was there in February 2020, which was at the beginning of the pandemic that has since changed the world as we once knew it. Even though I was there for a short period of time, I still got to see what the city was like under unusual circumstances.

Simply put, the place was a ghost town. My flight into Hong Kong landed late at night, so I took a taxi straight to a hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui, a shopping and nightlife district in Kowloon.

Looking out from the hotel property the following morning, I saw that the highway was empty. I only spotted one taxi driving by.

Nathan Road was empty too, which is the main road in Kowloon. Packed with shops and restaurants along the road, this area is known to usually be a popular place of gathering. Yet, it was desolate, looking seemingly abandoned.

I stayed at a hotel right by a popular landmark called the Avenue of Stars, which is a walkway along the Victoria Harbour that recognizes accomplished individuals in the Hong Kong film industry. After getting some sleep upon arrival in Hong Kong, I ended up visiting this spot the following morning, as it was a mere 10 minute walk from the hotel I stayed at.

It was a beautiful sight to walk along the avenue and take in the view of the harbor. The area was so empty! To stand there and look in the distance at the bustling cityscape with barely anyone else around felt simultaneously eerie and surreal.

One major highlight of the Avenue of Stars is seeing the famous Bruce Lee Statue. It sits along the walkway and is located right in front of a Starbucks. I’d like to think that the statue was placed on a bed of flowing water to be a symbolic representation of one of Lee’s most famous quotes about “being water,” which is, “Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

If you look to the right in the picture above, you can see the statue situated right outside of a Starbucks.

Coincidentally, I ended up stopping in the Starbucks and got some food and a drink before my flight because restaurants were closed. I had a conversation with one of the baristas and he was the one that informed me that restaurants were shut down, along with people beginning to stay indoors.

I still remember stopping and staring out into the cityscape, hearing nothing around me. No talking, no cars, just the occasional noise in the distance from the additional urban sprawl across the harbor. Walking at the Avenue of Stars and the surrounding area near the hotel and seeing everything as if it were abandoned felt like a defining moment that the pandemic had started to become a reality. As mentioned previously, it was eerie. I hope I never see Hong Kong (or any other place in the world for that matter) in a state of lock-down like this ever again.