Hong Kong, Here I Come
I finally checked into the hotel. It was the four-star Regal Kowloon Hotel, with HSBC and Bank of China nearby. It was also the first time in a while that I could access YouTube without turning on a proxy.
This is the opening post for recording how this trip to Hong Kong felt.
One thing I noticed right away was that many free Wi-Fi networks in Hong Kong require an intranet login page. If your computer starts a proxy automatically, remember to turn it off before connecting.
On the bus, you can connect to the free Wi-Fi twice a day, for 30 minutes each time. I registered for ZA on the bus to the hotel; it was still under review then. Also, if you want to get off the bus, press the red button in advance, or it will not stop at your station……
Opening Accounts
The main goals of this trip were opening accounts, getting phone service, and setting up a Hong Kong iPhone. Here is how those plans went.
Bank Accounts
You need your Home Return Permit, ID card, and the same-day exit certificate from the Immigration 12367 mini-program in WeChat. If you download the document on the first day and use it to open an account on the second day, it will not be valid.
ZA
I registered for ZA on the bus to the hotel. It was still under review at the time, but the application was approved on August 17 and I could open the account directly.
The site owner’s ZA referral code is A29WB2. Registering with it gives you several benefits, including coupons worth 1K HKD. After completing a few tasks, such as linking WeChat Pay HK, you can also get offers like a 100 HKD rebate coupon for 10 HKD.
I recommend not opening an investment account. To trade Hong Kong or US stocks, your source of funds needs to be outside mainland China, which most people probably do not have. Of course, if you do, pretend I never said that.
ZA lets you choose the “Most Exciting” plan. The other “Most Motivating” plan has steadier rewards, but it requires an investment account, bringing us back to the condition above. “Most Motivating” pays out stocks, which are relatively stable; “Most Exciting” gives you more lottery draws.
ZA charges a 1.95% fee when you spend in currencies other than Hong Kong dollars. After registering with the site owner’s referral code, you also get some fixed-term rate coupons for HKD and USD. The highest rates are 2.7% per year for HKD with a minimum of 10,000 HKD, and 3.7% per year for USD with a minimum of 2,000 USD. That is indeed much higher than mainland rates.
HSBC
I prepared to apply for an HSBC ONE account online on August 16 and successfully opened it on August 17. Filling in “student” honestly works. If you are not a student, the company field allows at most 20 characters and only English letters, so you can only use an abbreviated English name.
The default card is the blue lion card, and it is more than enough.
The card appears in the app on the first day, which makes it look as if you can choose any activation date. In reality, you still have to wait for the physical card to arrive before activating it. On the first day, the account cannot send money out, only receive it. You need to log in again the next day and receive an SMS code on your registered phone number before that restriction is lifted.
You need to keep more than 10,000 HKD in the account to waive the management fee. Otherwise, there is a 100 HKD monthly maintenance fee, starting from the month after activation and calculated from the average balance over three months. It is best to deposit 10,000 HKD during the activation month so the fee stays waived. Hong Kong banks also offer relatively high fixed-deposit rates, so the money can earn a little interest while it sits there.
Ant
You can register through Alipay HK. You still need your ID card and Home Return Permit. You can set a personal transfer limit and take part in some small Alipay promotions.
Xiangxiang
This is another virtual bank similar to ZA, with convenient securities trading. But if you are not interested in all that and do not want another account to maintain, you can skip it. I did.
Bank of China
I had completed the Bank of China application by August 16, but it failed on August 17. Online applications for Bank of China are currently very difficult to pass; as a tourist, and especially as a student, it seems even harder. If you want a better chance, make an appointment through the WeChat mini-program about a week in advance and open the account in person.
I left disappointed. Bank of China has an incredible number of promotions. As one of Hong Kong’s note-issuing banks, it really is a giant here; a mainland nobody suddenly feels like a small fish in a very different pond.
Hang Seng
I heard Hang Seng is similar to HSBC and can also issue a physical Visa card. The minimum balance for waiving the management fee seems to be around 5,000 HKD. Its exchange rates may be slightly worse than HSBC’s. Since I already had the HSBC blue lion card, I could not be bothered to apply.
Other Accounts and Services
I also planned to use a Hong Kong IP to apply for Stripe and Oracle Cloud, following this detailed guide to opening a personal Stripe account online with a Hong Kong card. I have already completed the HKD account setup for Payoneer.
Stripe requires a passport, but I forgot to bring mine this time. I registered anyway and got restricted; I will see whether I can fix it after returning to mainland China.
The Oracle Cloud attempt also failed, so I did not manage to open that account during this trip.
Phone Service
These Hong Kong phone plans all require in-person identity verification in Hong Kong.
CSL
CSL activated successfully. I bought the 58 HKD orange card, which includes 20 HKD and 20 GB of local Hong Kong data, and I also registered for The Club. When Google sent a verification code, it said the number had been used too many times.
3HK
I bought the 3HK Greater Bay Area 45 GB eSIM plan and completed identity verification on August 18. It should let me use some Hong Kong IP traffic after returning to mainland China.
Hong Kong iPhone
Activation and Apple IDs
I bought a Hong Kong iPhone 17, which supports eSIM and Apple Intelligence. The iPhone automatically registered a Hong Kong Apple ID, and I planned to use it mainly for international services.
On August 18, I also registered a US Apple ID to download apps unavailable in the Hong Kong store and to make in-app purchases. I recommend signing out of the original ID in the App Store before registering a new one; the success rate is higher than registering through the website.
After several attempts, I found that the registration had to receive a call from a US number before it would succeed. Afterward, you can switch the phone number to your own +86 number.
Apps and Services
The main reason for registering a US ID was to download GPT and Claude. I also moved some apps from my Huawei phone to the iPhone and will continue installing anything else I need.
Shadowrocket requires an in-app purchase, which can also be made with a Hong Kong ID. Since I already have Alipay HK, I plan to buy Hong Kong-region in-app purchases with the Hong Kong account and pay with the ZA card, then add my own nodes to Shadowrocket.
I tried registering Telegram with two Hong Kong phone numbers and failed both times, wasting 4 HKD. Do not bother trying this way. Telegram seems exceptionally difficult to register in Hong Kong, and even after paying, I never received a verification code. It is worth filing a dispute through Apple Services, though; the site owner did that and received a refund two days later.
From now on, I will mainly use the Hong Kong iPhone for external services and the Huawei phone for domestic services, keeping the two sides separate.
CSL failed to register WhatsApp, but the 3HK eSIM worked. Later I also registered one with my +86 number. A WhatsApp app can hold at most two numbers at once, and I no longer feel like testing whether the problem was CSL or something else.
A few days after registering WhatsApp, I received a risk-control notice. It was solvable by following customer service’s instructions. At first they asked me to use a verification code, but for some reason the code did not work, so I had to scan a QR code. It finally verified successfully.
Travel, Food, and Sights
I went to Victoria Harbour at night. It was packed, with tour groups everywhere, and the Avenue of Stars was almost impossible to see. I only managed to take a photo of the light pollution.
From higher up, Victoria Harbour looked completely different in the daytime.
Come hunt Pac-Man with me, brother (just kidding).
Two helicopter photos. They look like two mosquitoes, but both were taken from the Star Ferry.
Underage aliens 👽 please watch with an adult alien:
Bruce Lee: I can take on ten!
There was also the Hong Kong Film Awards Goddess statue nearby.
Symmetry is so satisfying. Sadly, I could not remove the lower-left corner: doing so would make the mirror in the center incomplete. Between completeness and symmetry, completeness wins.
Three rides on the Hong Kong Observation Wheel for 20 HKD.
Mom, I am on TV (just kidding).
Beef with scrambled eggs over rice at a cha chaan teng, around 58 HKD? Not bad.
You still had a chance to attend this event when the article was published (haha).
The feeling of a liminal space suddenly became very strong.
“Lush branches and tangled roots” was another thing I experienced very literally for the first time.
The beef tendon and brisket rice was also pretty good. I think I ate at this restaurant three times in four days.
The heroine looks like the protagonist from Celeste. The pixel art was really good (happy).
Before leaving Hong Kong, I bought a pork-and-egg bun. It was genuinely delicious. This was a small bit of happiness before leaving, and it was cheap too: 10 HKD, about half the price of a KFC breakfast in mainland China, with just as much food.
Remember this brand. It is genuinely cheap and delicious.
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