Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens
There are great zoological and botanical gardens (I'm thinking of Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Gardens in London and San Diego Zoo), and then there's the one in Hong Kong's Mid-Levels. OK, it's not going to win any prizes, but it's not such a bad afternoon out with the children.
Assuming your children, like mine, couldn't care less about exotic plants and foliage, take them first to visit the monkeys. There's a variety of tamarins, orang-utans from Borneo and gibbons, with their faces like bottoms and satisfyingly human expressions (it's always humbling, looking at monkeys).
The star of the show is definitely the huge male orang-utan. Sporting matted dreadlocks that would put Bob Marley to shame and a mangy orange coat, he lopes around his cage stuffing himself with bananas and glowering at the spectators in that peculiarly reproachful way caged animals have got down to a fine art. Or perhaps, like us, he was choking on the air quality in Central that day. There are also lion-tailed macaques, ring-tailed lemurs (they're the ones that look like raccoons), a giant Asian pond turtle, tortoises and a reptile house that houses a large Burmese python, which is always asleep and leaves me wondering if it's alive or stuffed.
On the other side (via a tunnel under Albany Road) there's a solitary jaguar with the most beautiful fur coat.
Given that the authorities have roped off the bird exhibits to reduce the risk of avian flu, the assorted fowl that reportedly include pheasants, cranes, ducks and vibrantly pink flamingoes (we spied them from a distance) are strictly off limits. But my lot didn't care, and spent the rest of the time in the children's playground, which has the cleanest public toilets I've ever seen, and in the square with the beautiful flowerbeds and 1970s-inspired fountains. But be warned: the seats by the fountains are just the right level for an active one-year-old to plunge his torso into the water, so we all left considerably wetter - but happier - than when we arrived.