Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence

This was a fun outing for us today. We live in Sheung Wan and decided to take the subway to the other side of Hong Kong island, putz around in Shau Kei Wan and go to Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence and then take the Tram/​Ding Ding all the way back to get a great sight seeing tour of the city.
The Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence is a short walk from the subway or the ding ding and easily posted on the pink directional signs on the street. Maybe 10 – 15 minute walk from either one.
This area was once a stronghold fort and battery built by the British over a hundred years ago. It was a battlefield of a Japanese invasion in 1941 where many soldiers lost their lives. It is nice that it was preserved as a historical location to Hong Kong.
When you arrive, you check in to an administrative building, pay the $ 10HKD entrance fee and take an elevator up eight floors where you are dumped then outside into the hill where the fort is actually located. Hang a right and explore all that and then when you leave, in lue of taking the elevator down, you can walk the entire length of the hill and see a whole lot more of the history of the fort.
The museum and complex is a great place to roam and stroll outside and walk around and explore. The fort itself is preserved and is the actual museum building where historical installations and information is displayed. There is a lot of historical informaion to read
If you have kids who need to run around, this is a great outside space for some running around. They also have like a kids corner/​activity area inside up on the top floor that was packed with kids and families doing an activity of some sort.
We enjoyed the wandering element to all that is outside and in the open. Trees, green, beautiful views, quiet, historical relics, fresh air. There a small café if you wanted to grab a snack or drink. Lots of outdoor benches and photo ops. Lots of military equipment, tanks, cannons on display.
We enjoyed our day here. We enjoyed the grounds. The museum quality is OK, but the experience was great. They do have a gift shop, but it is really sub par.

You can just imagine what this place was like during WWII. You feel like you step into a fortress when you take the elevator up tour around the site. This museum is rich in history about the how the Japanese invaded Hong Kong and how the British set up this coastal fortress to defend it’s territory. A very educational experience and well worth the price of admission.

Lei Yu Moon at Shau Kei Wan is the narrowest place along the the Victoria Harbour, only about 400m wide only, this is the reason why the British saw this as a strategic location to defend their just acquired Hong Kong Island. The Bristish built forte, canon that can cover the whole of Lei Yu Moon and underground trenches around 1880s. When the Japanese invaded Hong Kong in the Second World War, the British did fought some hard battles with the Japanese here too.
Around 1990s the Hong Kong government decided to make good the deteriorating historical remains of this military forte and build some storage facilities here for government documents. Luckily the architects at Architectural Services Department recommended to make this place a museum. The Museum mainly uses a tensile tent structure to act as a canopy over all of the underground trenches, as a weather barrier for the visitors, in one simple gesture. Additional exhibition spaces were built for displaying educational material about the remains. The Museum finally opens in 2000. It was quite new as a tensile structure at that time, and we students used to have some filed trips there to learn about not only the exhibits, but also the building itself. The entrance was quite an experience too, after the entrance lobby, you immediately go up a tower that brings you up to the level of the mole the museum sits on. Then you pass through the narrow bridges to go up the place where the main building was, formerly where the canons and trenches sits. There you can overlook the whole of Lei Yau Moon and Shau Kei Wan Typhoon Shelter, and imagine in your head how the Japanese pushes up this mole onto the British force up there during the WWII… quite a long and winding route, with strategic defence points sprinkled along the way~