People point to places such as Lan Kwai Fong or Wyndham Street as examples of how Hong Kong is one of Asia's great nightlife destinations. But when most Hongkongers head out on a Friday night to have a few drinks, they look to the skies.
In popular entertainment towers pricey martinis, mixologists and pulsing dance beats are few and far between. The preference here is for a mixed pitcher of whisky and green tea on ice, some dice, karaoke and maybe a game of darts. If you think of these places as the haunts of triads and teenagers who don't know better, then you are missing out. There is no better way to embrace this aspect of our drinking culture than the most Hong Kong specific night out of them all: the vertical pub crawl.
The city already has a few versions of the pub crawl: there is the "club 7-Eleven crawl" in which drinkers on a budget walk from one end of the island to the other, stopping at each 7-Eleven to polish off a cold beer, and the Jell-O shot trail in Central, which sounds so disgusting that one hopes it is apocryphal. These two are probably best left to college students, backpackers and tourists.
The vertical pub crawl is Cantonese through and through.
Most Hongkongers sleep, eat, shop and live their lives high above street level. So, it is no surprise that free time is spent aloft. Each tower is basically a bar street in a box, with karaoke parlours, arcades, restaurants, bars and discos.
There are many suitable venues in Hong Kong, but a good place to start is the Ashley Centre on Ashley Road in Tsim Sha Tsui, a collection of 10 or 11 bars, discos and pubs, and the odd restaurant, spread across 15 floors.