Strangely, the English pages have no prices listed. On its Chinese website, the prices of select room types (all with toilet and shower room) are listed for reference:

Small-bed single room (36 inch single bed ): from HK$180

Big-bed single room (50 inch single bed): from HK$220

Twin room (2 36-inch single beds): from HK$220

Take note that the website says the quotes are for reference only and the prices are the basic price, “from” which any price is possible.

But no doubt this hostel offers some of the affordable accommodations in town with one big advantage – excellent location. It is in the heart of Tsim Sha Tsui, near Hong Kong Cultural Centre and Hong Kong Arts Museum.

There is a website I always use for finding affordable accommodation around the world, i.e. Hostel World. Through it, you can find Hong Kong’s affordable accommodation with review from all the past users, which is very useful.

Please write in to recommend accommodation in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong has over 700 licensed guesthouses and nearly 25% of them, a whopping 160, are located in Chung King Mansion. This is a stunning figure. So if you are looking for a cheap place to stay, go to Chung King Mansion and you are almost guaranteed that your wish will be granted. Chung King Mansion has the city’s cheapest guesthouses and accommodation. And the advantage is not only its low cost but also its convenient location. Located in the heart of Tsim Sha Tsui, the MTR station is just right across the road, with tourist spots such as Star Ferry pier, Hong Kong Art Museum, etc just a stone’s throw away.

I viewed a documentary about Chung King Mansion lately, which unfortunately is in Cantonese.  But if you go through it quickly, the visual can still give you a sense of what the Mansion is like and what the cheap accommodation in it is like. (And, you can use “translate” function of Youtube to help you understand! An English-speaking anthropologist speaking upfront also helps! )

“For the past ten years, I have not raised prices. It is still HK$60 per bed. I will not raise the prices either in the future,” a guesthouse owner vowed. His 40-year-0ld guesthouse is therefore very popular with backpackers. And this guesthouse owner is surely a character. Hong Kong’s latest inflation rate is over 7%. And he insisted on not raising prices. Chung King Mansion is legendary partly because of characters like him.

The lower-end accommodation in Hong Kong all has commonality: very small space with full array of facilities such as 24-hour hot shower, clean shower rooms/toilets, water facility, storage service, laundry room, etc. If it is an ensuite twin room, the room will have everything, including a TV set on the wall to save space, and a tiny shower room with toilet. But be prepared that the room is only slightly bigger than the space for a bed, and you have to pay HK$250-300 (US$32-40) per person per night.

This video, a project by a Hong Kong student, has gone viral. It is a parody of how Hong Kong’s real estate companies go to extreme lengths to promote their flats (including the surroundings and the construction materials used) in order to fetch an exorbitant price.

Towards the end, the video shows what the cubical flat is really like without decoration. It is such a true representation. We all know the tricks of the property companies – showing you a very nice show room before the building has been completed, to lure you to buy in advance, and then you find that the flat you have bought is so different from what has been shown in the show room.

Btw, the small cubical flat in the video, just big enough to put down a small mattress, was rented by the student for 3 days for filming the project. The rent is US$13 per day, and US$400 per month.

The property in the project is called King’s Cube, whose name is similar to a new luxury property in the real world – the Queen’s Cube complex in Wanchai. When the flats in Queen’s Cube were open for sale late last year, the price was HK$10M (US$1.3M) for a flat of 580 sq.ft (53 sq. m), which is floor size only. The actual size is a mere 65% of it. The rent? HK$26,00 – 28,000 a month. It is furnished with balcony, but only one bedroom, and hardly any view.

I still don’t understand why a government organization, Urban Renewal Authority, tasked for the city’s re-development has worked with a private developer to develop a property that sells for such a crazy price. Isn’t it wrong and not justified?? This is what the city’s redevelopment is like?? Luxury properties for the rich??

Hotel ICON stands atop the Hung Hom Cross-Harbour Tunnel at Kowloon side

A new four star hotel located in Tsim Sha Tsui east, Hotel ICON, has added to the ranks of Hong Kong’s hottest hotels. There have been rave reviews on the hotel since its soft opening in April. It will be officially opened in September.

I introduced this hotel because it is not a profit making hotel, but a research and training hotel owned by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), one of the major universities in Hong Kong. If you book now, there are special offers for a stay of up to three nights.

Hong Kong has two research and training hotels. One is Hyatt in the New Territories, which is the research hotel of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. This research hotel by PolyU has one obvious edge – its strategic location in the hotel area in Tsim Sha Tsui and near the Hung Hom station and Tsim Sha Tsui East station.

The hotel boasts designs by some of the most famous designers in the city and in the world. The hotel has one of the world’s largest vertical gardens, for instance, which is designed by Patrick Blanc, the French creator of the vertical greenery concept. The hotel is also decorated with designs by such famous home-grown designers as Vivienne Tam and Freeman Lau, and architects like Rocco Yim.

Check out the hotel website here.

The listing allows you to search by area. Most of the apartments require one month as minimum length of stay, but some allow you to stay on a daily basis.

Check out here.

Price of rooms ranges from HK$400 to HK$1700, all with a small balcony resembling that of 60s in Hong Kong. But be prepared that the rooms are small, just like the way it was, with the smallest only 80 sq feet, just enough for a single bed and a TV set. But the decoration of the hotel looks really cool, bringing you back to old Hong Kong.

The 3-star hotel has 25 guestrooms. It is said that it is particularly popular with backpackers.

Here’s the hotel (Mingle Place by the Park)’s website.

And the environment is very good, as the hotel faces Tolo Harbour, with rooms having either mountain or sea view.

I am talking about Hyatt Regency Hotel in Shatin.

The hotel is located adjacent to The Chinese University of Hong Kong, at the University Station along the East Rail line of MTR, close to Lowu. Transportation would be convenient, though going to Central or Wanchai may take a bit longer.

Obviously the hotel has close relationship with the University. Right, the hotel actually is kind of teaching hotel for the University’s School of Hotel and Tourism Management. The School and the hotel group Hyatt Hotel & Resort celebrated the hotel’s soft opening in February 2009. The hotel facilities are brand new.

The hotel is special in that it has 133 long-stay suites to cater for extended stay. Given the nice environment in the Chinese University, which has Hong Kong’s most beautiful campus, and the surrounding natural scenery, the facilities for long-stay is no surprise.

Btw, if you stay in this hotel, don’t forget to visit the Pavilion of Harmony in the Chinese University’s New Asia College.

 The rate for a Standard Room has been lowered to about HK$1000-1200, a discount from its normal price of HK$1,800.

The boutique hotel, with 66 rooms in total, is conveniently located in the depth of Wanchai, a 10-minute walk to the shopping centre Causeway Bay.

If you are interested, check out its website: www.thefleming.com.hk

If you don’t mind the distance and want to live in the countryside like environment, they may be your choice.

These two properties are run by two of Hong Kong’s main property developers, Sino Group and Hong Kong’s tycoon Li Ka Shing’s Hutchison and Cheung Kong Groups.

Gold Coast Serviced Apartments, at Gold Coast, New Territories

These apartments have sea view, and require a minimum of one month stay, from HKD16000 per apartment.  Nearby is a beach.

It provides shuttle bus service to different points in the city centre, and takes about 30 minutes to reach Central on the Hong Kong island.

Harbour Plaza Resort City in Tin Shui Wei, New Territories

Tin Shui Wei area is known in Hong Kong for frequent occurrence of family tragedies where the poor families do not get enough support from the Government. So this “resort city” is inherently not really belonging to the area’s landscape. The place is a bit far from the city centre, but it is on the railway line, at the Tin Shui Wei Station of the Hong Kong MTR station. Travel time from Tin Shui Wei to, say Central, is 44 minutes by train. Monthly rental of the apartment is from HK$5900.

Western District is adjacent to Central, Hong Kong’s banking and financial centre, and nearby there are some Hong Kong attractions such as the dry seafood street and the open air market in Graham street.

Its only disadvantage in terms of location is the lack of MTR (Hong Kong’s railway system) transport. But the Western District is linked by tram and bus to Sheung Wan or Central, from where you can take the MTR. It is about 15-minute tram ride from the Western District to Central.

Because of the lack of MTR transport, the hotels in this district are not as expensive as those in, say Central, or Wanchai, or Mongkok. So you can find hotels of reasonable price in this area, and some hotels seem to offer good quality and service as well.

One advantage of staying in this district is that you can easily observe the daily living of Hong Kong people, for the area is a residential area, and is an old district, with some of the traditional stores still being kept and run. 

There are four major hotels in this area:

Hotel Jen

Jen Hotel

This 4-star hotel is far into the Western District, in an area called Kennedy Town. They provide free shuttle bus going from the hotel to various points in Central. The hotel is getting popular over the past year since renovation and change of ownership.

There is no price on their website. And the staff told me that their price is quoted on a daily basis. The price I asked on a Saturday is HK$580 plus 10% service charge, for a single or a double room. Some of their rooms command seaview, which will be charged more.

This hotel has a modern look and is freshly decorated compared to other hotels in the district.

Ramada Hotel

This hotel is situated in the middle of the Western District, closer to the Central than Hotel Jen. It looks a bit old-fashioned, though.  Hotel room price is quoted on their website, which seems similar to the price of Hotel Jen.

Island Pacific Hotel

This hotel is nearest Central and situated more towards the side of harbourfront. The price would be the highest in the district, more catering to the business travelers. It offers special price for long stay, though. Say for July 2008, for a standard room, the rate is HK$21,000 a month. 

Cosco Hotel

It does not have its own website. But you can check here for detail. The price would be the lowest in the district, with some good comments from users. See here.

This hotel, operated under a Chinese capital group, is the farthest into the Western District. A tram ride to Central from the hotel is about 15-20 minutes, though.

Another is Domus (www. Domus.com.hk). They have 69 well furnished apartments in Tin Hau, near Causeway Bay. Monthly rent ranges from HK$16,800 to HK$28,500. But the minimum stay is two months.

Here’s some choice that I stumbled upon of recent and found it a bit interesting – city loft (www.cityloft.com.hk). The website boasts modern living in historical buildings (i.e. old buildings). The studios are all refurnished and refurbished, available in Sheung Wan, Central, Wanchai and Causeway Bay, all major and busy areas on Hong Kong Island. Monthly rent ranges from HK$6,000 to HK$10,000.

There are only few choices for short-term apartment rental in Hong Kong, as you may have guessed. It is probably because the property price is so high that most people can only afford to buy one property to live in. For those who can afford to have a spare property for lease, they would rather lease it to local residents on a yearly contract.

Well, you can still find short-term apartments for just a few days or weeks, though the choice is limited. The daily rate ranges from HK$350 to HK$2,000.

For those on the budget, check out rent a room. This company’s self-contained room-apartments offer a range of price (from about HK$400 for 1 person to about HK$1000 for 4 persons per day) to choose from. Its location in Jordan, Kowloon, is convenient. But do expect the apartment is small and pretty basic with little decoration.

You can also check out this site for a higher end market. Most of them are for month-long rent only. But there are few that you can rent on a per-day basis for up to HK$1,300 a day. This site offers daily-pakcage of serviced apartment at about HK$1600 in prime areas of Hong Kong.

If you plan to stay in HK for a month, the choice is a lot wider. Hang Lung Properties, a Hong Kong main developer, offers three locations of serviced apartments on a monthly rental basis. All apartemtns are conveniently located and nicely decorated. You can choose from its apartments of different sizes, facilities and prices. Other choices (most of them expensive choices) include Apartment Kapok, V Serviced Apartments (looks stylish), Eaton House (very expensive), 88 (luxury!) and 153&163 (looks like a typical HK ordinary home).

Here’s more: theV, sytlish studio/apartments, with locations at Happy Valley, Causeway Bay, Wanchai and West Kowloon, with price from HK$13,800 per month for a studio; The Lodge, HK$10,500 -12,800 per month, brand new apartments with boardband and cable TV, near Jordan MTR station and Kowloon MTR station; and the Regent Heights, with more than 100 units of different apartment types, located in Causeway Bay, one month lease required.