October 11, 2022
Have you missed my virtual blog about the tallest building in Hong Kong and Sky100? If so, check it out here and see HK's skyscrapers on top of the tallest building in the country. #TravelHongKong: Conquering HK's Tallest Building and Sky100
I was surfing online one day when I came across a post about the world's longest escalator. My curiosity pushed me to tap the link and I even thought it could be found in Japan. In almost five years of living in Hong Kong, I never heard about the existence of the longest escalator here. I was surprised to know about it. The next weekend after that, I went out for a trip to find the longest escalator.
Then I thought, instead of riding a train, a tram, or a bus when roaming around Central, why not ride an escalator? And that's only free.
Image created in Canva
Using the information I got online, I looked at the starting point with the help of Google Maps since I am not familiar with the streets in Central. A day with fine weather is perfect to capture those skyscrapers in Central. Despite the scorching sun, the tall buildings would offer shade for passers.
The information says it starts at 100 Queens Road, which is a 5-minute walk from the Central Exit D2 MTR Station. The route was familiar to me, but I never thought of the existence of the longest escalator before. I turned off the map once I recognized the route.
I had a free ride and traveled to 18 streets and roads in Mid-Level Central Hong Kong, stopping at various tourist attractions along the way.
The escalator was opened in 1993 and stretched over eight hundred meters with over four hundred forty-three feet of elevation. It cost over $30 million to build the system. The escalators are covered which gives residents and tourists a convenient and faster mode of transportation while traveling through the mid-level part of Hong Kong Island.
But it isn't one long escalator that you expect; rather, it consists of eighteen series of escalators and three moving walkways on eighteen different bisecting streets.
The escalators have 17.5° to 30° inclines with a one-meter width that allows better space for commuters to walk through them conveniently, while the moving walkways have 18.1° to 11.7° inclines.
Escalators information from Wikipedia
As per etiquette, commuters should stay on the right side, so that those who opt to walk could pass on the left. For safety measures, better hold the handrails while traversing through these escalators.
The flows are only one way and travel uphill and downhill during scheduled hours, respectively. So anyone who wants to go the opposite way should use the staircases on the side. That also means 18 series of long staircases with more than seven hundred steps from the starting point to the end of it. And that would be the best exercise.
The end escalator was on Conduit Road and it took me an hour instead of more or less half an hour of complete journey on all escalators since I still took photos, and videos, and stopped at other places along the way.
These have been one of the tourist attractions in Central, Hong Kong. Apart from the free ride, I was able to capture different streets with buildings of different architecture along the streets, from old ones to modern ones.
On my way back to the bottom, was my chance to explore different streets that I had never visited before. There were a lot of supermarkets, malls, shops, restaurants, cafes, bars, and pubs. You can check my blog about these streets full of restaurants here.
The cafes and restaurants would be great places to stop after the long ride. There are a lot of choices serving different cuisines, Asian, Western, Italian, Indian, Mediterranean, and more.
Given that Central is the heart of Hong Kong, it is the most expensive, and there are a lot of tourists in the area. Thus, there are a lot of financial centers, government offices, fancy places, shopping malls with branded merchandise, and high-class hotels too.
And because of this free ride on the world's longest escalators, I discovered a heritage of arts that I never thought existed in Central. But due to limited time, I opted to visit the place the week after. And that will be my next travel blog one of these days.
It was such an exhausting, yet worthwhile experience to find and ride on the longest escalator from the bottom to the top of Mid-Level Central. And capturing more skyscrapers and discovering the hidden beauty of the heart of Hong Kong was the best part of it.
That's all for today's travel blog. See you next time and thank you for stopping by.
For a better experience, you can watch the video uploaded on ThreeSpeak. I hope you enjoy it!
(All photos are mine)
▶️ 3Speak