Kowloon Walled City Park

I saw someone doing tai chi in one of the more isolated pavilions here and for a second, thought that I was watching a Chinese movie. The architectural buildings and gardens here are beautiful. It’s a great oasis away from the daily hustle and bustle of Hong Kong life but it can get touristy since this park stands where the Walled City used to be.
Kowloon Walled City was a densely populated settlement with history dating back to the 1880s. It was later demolished but the yamen (government official building) and remnants of its South Gate were preserved. There’s a bronze model of a cross section of the original Walled City by the South Gate so you can get a sense of how crowded it was. The current paths inside the park are named after the historic streets.

This is a lovely little park but I would recommend coming here just for that slice of HK history.
It’s a little bit difficult to get here as it isn’t on the MTR line. If you can get to Kowloon City then it’s just a five minute walk to the entrance. (You can take the 25M green minibus from Kowloon Tong Station)
Also be careful, it is a park within a park so make sure you go through Carpenter Road Park and into Kowloon Walled City Park.
Going I the main entrance you get to see the remains of the old south gate and there is an exhibition with videos and photos showcasing the areas history. It is very interesting and I loved hearing the stories from the people who actually lived there.
The park is a lovely Chinese style garden with pavilions and walkways leading you around. I really liked the Chinese zodiac statues.
It is also a place for the local elders to gather and chat or play cards as they don’t have much space to do so in their homes. It’s a quiet escape from the crazy city.

They park is ok, I wasn’t able to appreciate it. Getting to the park wasn’t what I was expecting. Seems to be an area surrounded by a dumping ground for the elderly and disabled. You can tell it’s a blue collar area, but the area is mostly low income housing, no real shops to speak of and I would avoid the shopping centered nearby.

The area where the infamous Walled City housing 33,000 people once stood is now Kowloon Walled City Park, which is filled with interesting things to read and see, to learn about its checkered past.
The park is divided into eight areas with the winding paths and pavilions named after streets and buildings from the Walled City.
It’s mindboggling to imagine just how many people used to live in the space — mostly in poorly built high rises, the vast majority of which had no lifts — some were 14 storeys tall!
It was good to have an amble around, but after half an hour or so you’d probably have found out pretty much all you need to know about its history. It’s still a charming place to visit nonetheless if you don’t mind a somewhat lengthy walk from the MTR.

Recently a game company in Japan is going to create an arcade using the walled city of Kowloon as the central theme.
During the colonial period, there was this part of Hong Kong that was literally untouched by any sort of law; not by the Chinese government nor the british. This is the Kowloon walled city. Due to the lack of law enforcement, criminals, hookers, drug addicts all flocked into this region of the colony and started their lives here. Also due to the ineffective regulations, the buildings were built in the most dangerous possible ways with little to no fire control; a fire eventually broke out and took several lives with it and the HK government that time had decided to demolish the entire complex leaving what is today this park.
The park has tried to keep some of the stone stele pillars and part of the «Yamen» building (think of it as a Chinese police station) as well as trying to make it look more Chinese by placing a few pavilions; otherwise it is very much like any ordinary parks. While applauding the Japanese for their imaginativeness and innovativeness in using the «sin city like» walled city as theme, I cant help but question why it is them who came up with this idea but not someone in Hong Kong? Perhaps it is part of the shameful past that the HK government would not like to remind herself of?
There is always a struggle between development and conservation; especially in this piece of land which every inch of it is money. The demolition of the walled city was inevitable, even necessary; yet I feel as if there were too little that has been done to preserve this part of history. The younger generation would not have imagined there was once such a place in Hong Kong; nor will they know about the history of Hong Kong should the government not cherish its heritage.

The Kowloon Walled City Park is a must-​see for local history buffs who want to investigate the site of — what was at one point — the most densely populated area in the world. Nowadays, the block of apartments, restaurants and manufacturing factories have been torn down to make way for a public park that is free of charge and wonderfully intricate and varied with its architecture.
There are plenty of beautiful pagodas for you to relax and sit down in, as walking around the entire park can be quite tiresome. There are lots of winding paths, hidden away from the sun by tree cover and whilst walking through the garden you’ll see statues, cannons and other memorabilia that tries to bring the Kowloon Walled City’s past to life. There are also little shops to pick up a drink or snack whilst wandering through the park.
The temples complement the pagodas well to create a sense of tranquility and they allow you to sit and think about what used to lie here, and what it symbolized for Hong Kong. The Kowloon Walled City was a microcosm in many respects, with the dense patter of societal life sprouting up despite the tension between China and Britain over who owned this locality.
At one point in history, the Kowloon Walled City was independent of any external government and there are well-​documented pictures of the first set of citizens of took it upon themselves to govern the small municipal themselves.
There’s even more for the history junkies with a good mix of physical remnants from the tearing down of the walled city, such as the broken sign that hung over the gate that used to welcome its citizens in, as well as the exhibitions recently created to transport visitors back to its historical past.
One neat example is the interactive rooms located at the north side of the park, where visitors are encouraged to go in and see how life used to be here. One room shows how business people used to sell and barter with local residents, another shows children playing on the rooftops as planes fly a few meters over their heads and there’s even a to-​scale map projected on one of the walls for you to explore with your shadow!