This is a good year for visitors! This time it was two friends from Napier with their 1 year old son with us for a week. I had no idea how it would be touristing with a wee one in tow but I knew it would be different! They did some exploring while we were at work the first couple of days, then we had a 3 day weekend of adventuring together. It was quite funny to be planning trips around nap times but it worked out pretty well.

We did most of the classics:

• tram ride (sit up the front if you can - the little one loved it!)

• views from the peak (take a taxi up then walk across and down via the morning trail)

• star ferry (sit near some locals so the kids can charm them)

• light show (it’s crowded and pretty late at night BUT if you can be on the 7:57pm ferry from Kowloon to HK, you might get lucky like we did and have the driver stop to watch some of the show)

• ladies market (warning - ladies in the shops love foreign babies)

• dim sum (be prepared to risk your eyeballs once the kid gets a chopstick in their hand)

But we also did some build-your-own adventures too:

• Rather than queue up and squish into a crowded restaurant we ordered takeaway Tim Ho Wan and ate it on the roof of the IFC

• We discovered Hong Kong park in the heart of central with a huge aviary and multi level rainbow playground

• Ate super-delicious-but-really-expensive-for-a-tiny serving peking duck pancakes

• Spent evenings at home playing games and got extravagant dessert delivered

• Missioned to Big Wave Bay, built sandcastles, watched a cat on a leash pose on a surfboard, swam/splashed/paddled in the ocean and made bad food choices

A few tips/good things to know if anyone else is travelling to Hong Kong with a one year old:

• Strollers are pretty un-usable here with the abundance of hills and stairs so leave it at home as long as your kid is happy in a pack

• Speaking of packs, due to all the public transport and taxis you will use, it is best if you have the sort where they are on your front not your back, that way you can easily sit down

• Head to the market for the best/freshest/cheapest fruit and veges to make kid-mush-food from

• Bring a supply of any favourite on-the-go snacks from home, you can buy them here but it might be a mission to find and will be expensive

• Changing tables in public toilets are not as easily found, be prepared to improvise

• Taxis are a god-send for getting home quickly when needed, there could be some wild driving (though they are generally better with a kid in the car)

Now that the air mattress is deflated and the portacot returned I am noticing there is a distinct lack of toys in the lounge or pureed food in the fridge and that life is back to a calmer rhythm. It was a fun week getting to know the little fulla and hanging out with our friends, truly grateful they made the trip over - now it’s time for the rest of our kid-in-tow peeps to follow suit!