Discovery Bay is what I like to call a bubble community. The general rules of Hong Kong are not applicable to this ever-growing town, the people in there slightly different (DBers!), and the lifestyle is, in my experience, a more adventurous one. When I say adventurous I mean in terms of outdoor activities, not swingers! Located on Lantau island Discovery Bay, or Disco Bay as I like to call it, is but a 25 minutes ferry ride from Central. And well worth the visit.
The centre of DB is by and large the Plaza. They tried to rebrand it as the Piazza to bring in more tourist but the locals didn't pick it up. "You're going to the Piazza, where's that? Some village in Italy?"It's surrounded by restaurants, shops and supermarkets. Dotted around the plaza are two sections of benches and tables where housewives sit all day long with their dogs tucked under one arm and a smoothie in the other. There's always a 711 insight (4 within the space of three hundred meters!) so buying a drink and sitting on the edge of the plaza is a cheap, relaxed thing that many people do, me included. If you get bored of sitting around there are plenty of quality restaurants within a 5 minutes walk, a beach a little further and a recreational club house nearby as well.
The reason why I love the plaza is because this is where I grew up. It's where I played Catch, football, it's where I terrorized the adults, and it's where I, to do this day, sit, have an ice-cream and watch the world repeat itself with the new generation of wildlings. I like to tell myself I was never that wild but my memory doesn't go back more than a month so I wouldn't know. read more