While Causeway Bay is the new hot spot for serviced offices, it's easy to forget that its neighbouring district offers a contrast from the teeming office and retail precinct.
Inland, and surrounding the racecourse, is Happy Valley, with its mix of low and high-rise buildings, and areas that offer respite from city life.
The name Happy Valley actually has an unhappy story. Formerly known as Wong Nai Chung Valley, with a canal running through it, the area to the east became a graveyard for British soldiers who died of a malaria epidemic in the early 1840s.
The name Happy Valley, employing a popular euphemism for cemeteries, was then coined.
There are six cemeteries running next to each other, catering for the faiths of this cosmopolitan city more than a century ago, serving the burial needs of Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Protestants and Parsees.
The marshy rice paddies that allowed mosquitoes to thrive made way for racing in 1846. Happy Valley hasn't looked back since. It houses some of the most exclusive homes on the island, and plenty more affordable homes that give the district a more diverse dynamic. Happy Valley is split into two sections. Lower Happy Valley is the bustling centre, while up in the hills behind are the more luxurious secluded homes, including two of Hong Kong's tallest - and steepest priced - residential buildings, Highcliff and The Summit, that are nicknamed 'the chopsticks' as they stand side by side on the road up to Mount Nicholson.
