Aberdeen & Jumbo Kingdom

Aberdeen is Hong Kong's original fishing village — a harbour on the southern shore of Hong Kong Island where sampans, junks, and fishing boats have anchored for centuries, and where the floating population that once lived on the water can still be glimpsed in the remaining houseboats and sampan taxis. The name 'Hong Kong' (fragrant harbour) may derive from the incense trade that passed through Aberdeen before the British arrived.

The famous Jumbo Kingdom floating restaurant — a garish, three-storey floating palace that served dim sum to tourists for 46 years — capsized and sank while being towed to Cambodia in 2022, ending one of Hong Kong's most recognisable (if not most beloved) tourist attractions. Its absence has left a gap in the harbour's skyline but returned attention to Aberdeen's genuine character: the working fish market, the typhoon shelter where boats cluster during storms, and the seafood restaurants along the waterfront that serve the morning's catch without the tourist premium.

A sampan ride through the typhoon shelter — past the remaining houseboats, the moored junks, and the fish farms — costs a few dollars and provides a perspective on Hong Kong that the Central skyline can't offer. The Ap Lei Chau (Aberdeen Island) bridge connects to a public housing island with a surprisingly vibrant wet market and some of the cheapest dim sum in Hong Kong. Aberdeen is a 20-minute bus ride from Central but feels like a fishing village that's been accidentally surrounded by a city.