With the colony’s population rapidly increasing, law and order challenges led to the construction of the former Central Police Station, the Central Magistracy and Victoria Prison, which have been beautifully refurbished.

Completed in 1919, the Police Headquarters Block is one of the most impressive heritage buildings in Tai Kwun. Forming the public face of the complex, the north-side facade is a Neo-Classical revival while the south side features Classicist design. The building now houses a Heritage storytelling space, a police service centre, shops and restaurants.

One of the two major outdoor spaces at Tai Kwun, the Prison Yard was used as a space for prisoners to exercise, and now hosts performances and cultural programmes.

To add even more diversity and dimension, an art gallery space and auditorium now complement the impressive early 20th-century buildings. With 16 heritage buildings and several outdoor spaces, it is the perfect place for artists and art lovers to seek out historical markers, rich architecture, contemporary art, performing arts, and lifestyle experiences.

The “100 Faces of Tai Kwun” exhibition

Visitors are immersed in 100 amazing stories, collected from 100 “kaifongs” (local neighbours) and friends. Their stories, through illustrations, voice stories and more, reveal different interesting facets of Tai Kwun, which represent the heart and soul of this place.

Free animation movie every Sunday

Tai Kwun presents “Sunday Movie Series” with free film screenings every Sunday in the splendour of the semi-outdoor Laundry Steps. In collaboration with the Hong Kong International Film Festival, feature films and shorts have been carefully selected for their quality and enjoyment by all.

Selected tea at LockCha Tea House

This teahouse wishes happiness, enjoyment and fortune to all its customers. Their selection of teas comes from carefully chosen farms, with the aim of helping tea growers to conserve, develop and produce authentic good quality tea.

Lively cookie-baking performance which serves freshly-baked cookies at the end of the show, ‘the Spectacle of Space Consumption’

Special performances based on City Cookie, first staged in 2008 in Sao Paulo, are being staged for the first time in Hong Kong, in collaboration with HKAPA dancers and choreographers. At the JC Contemporary art gallery, freshly baked cookies are baked in a mesmerising 30-minute performance and then served to visitors. Uniquely designed aprons bearing the Hong Kong photo image of the sky that the cookie is cut from is worn by the dancers.

Live music every first Saturday of the month

Lovers of indie music are invited to listen to musical works from local and international musicians on the first Saturday afternoon of every month. Whether you enjoy classical music, pop or the truly “out there”, your musical horizons can be expanded.

Contemporary Cantonese cuisine at Madame Fu

Check out Madame Fu, a restaurant with lounges, bars and private dining, occupying the top floor of the beautifully restored Barracks Block. It brings back the experience and atmosphere of Hong Kong’s colonial past and the European Grand Cafes in Paris. Enjoy Cantonese cuisine, signature dishes from Northern provinces, dim sum and more. Afternoon teas are delightful too in this beautiful setting.

Keep updated at http://www.DiscoverHongKong.com/eng/see-do/culture-heritage/historical-sites/colonial/tai-kwun.jsp

Until September 2, visitors can enjoy amazing shows and performances every hour by a Guinness world record holder and other performers who will show off their superb skills in “Viva Spectacular” A national-level synchronised swimming team from Canada has come to Hong Kong for the first time to perform in “Aqua Kaleidoscope”, allowing guests to celebrate a dynamic summer with more than 100 elite performers from around the world!

“The Park has invested more than HK$37 million (Bt156.2 million) in this year’s Summer Carnimal, inviting performers from all over the world to present captivating shows. The grand parades feature fine costumes, giant puppets and other productions that clearly underline our efforts and attention to detail. We look forward to offering our guests a brand new summer experience and making the event one of the city’s not to be missed events this summer,” says Leo Kung, Chairman of Ocean Park.

Among the performers in Applause Pavilion’s “Viva Spectacular” are Ebon Grayman, a Cirque Du Soleil star acrobat and Shemika Campbell, the Queen of Limbo who holds three Guinness World Records. “Aqua Kaleidoscope” at Ocean Theatre meanwhile features the elegant water ballet of a national-level synchronised swimming team from Canada, and will immerse guests in spectacular audio-visual enjoyment. Furthermore, every child’s favourite “Whiskers Wet & Foam Bash” will be back at Whiskers Harbour together with colourful fountains and water screen arches, so families can splash away the heat and cool down while enjoying some family fun. All over the Park, a variety of roving street acts including the powerful Capoeira, drum music, energetic street dances, as well as performers in animal-themed carnival costumes, will enrich the sensational summer experience.

Apart from various enthralling shows and performances, the Park’s restaurants and food kiosks have also prepared a range of summer dishes, including an exquisite summertime Chinese menu designed by Michelin-starred chef Chan Kwok-keung, as well as a selection of Caribbean-style summer food and drink specialities.

Visitors can shop for summer-themed limited-edition merchandise such as brand new animal-themed hats, tie-dye t-shirts and headbands or take part in Wild Face Painting at Aqua City.

And visitors can join Ocean Park’s Instagram photo contest for a chance to visit the tropical Caribbean Islands in person. From mid-July onwards, guests simply have to capture their wonderful moments enjoying Summer Carnimal at the Park and upload their photos to Instagram with a creative caption and specific hashtags. The winners will enjoy a Royal Caribbean Cruise and air travel vacation package for two presented by Royal Caribbean Cruises Hong Kong and Ocean Park.

Admission is free Friday and Saturday evenings from 8.30 to 11pm.

Find out more by visiting http://www.OceanPark.com.hk/en.

The most populous province in South Korea Gyeonggi-do – the name actually means “surrounding the capital” – is home to a large variety of tourist attractions ranging from such cultural heritage sites as Suwon Hwaseong Fortress from the Joseon Dynasty to the infinitely more modern theme parks Seoul Land and Everland.

They were joined back in 2011 by Gwangmyeong Cave, which was quickly named as one of Korea’s “top 100 representative attractions” and a “Star of Korean Tourism”.

A theme park that has retained its industrial heritage and cultural values, Gwangmyeong Cave takes visitors on a memorable journey through more than a century of history.

Gwangmyeong, located southwest of Seoul, was a site of exploitation during the Japanese colonial period and the largest metal mine in the Seoul metropolitan area between 1912 and 1972, producing the likes of gold, silver, copper and zinc. The company that owned the mine went bankrupt at the end of the Korean War and from 1978 to 2010, it was used as a storage place for salted shrimps – an ingredient used to make kimchi. A year later, it had been transformed into a cavernous theme park and today hosts a wealth of events including movie screenings, concerts, fashion shows and exhibitions. It shot to wider fame when it was chosen as the setting for an episode of the TV show “Running Man”.

We start our visit with an elephant ride to the Lascaux Cave Exhibition, which earlier this month was focused on dinosaurs. Obviously considered a good place for an educational tour, we watched on as groups of cute kindergarten students had fun alternately enjoying and being scared by the dinosaurs as well as making their own dinosaur dig excavation and painting their own dinosaurs on piece of a “Hello! My Dino” paper. The little tykes beamed with pride as their drawings were scanned and uploaded to a big screen.

Leaving the kids to their own devices, we make our way to the 22-metre-high LED media tower and discover the “Golden Heart Post” in a mine cart. An official tells us it was used by the miners to leave their letters to their loving families.

We follow our guide along the Wind Road into the bowels of the mine, quickly slipping on our jackets as the temperature falls to a chilly 12 degrees Celsius.

Gwangmyeong Cave has many attractive spots to explore, among them Wormhole Square, the Light Space, which is full of colourful LED lights, the Underground World, the underground passage along which miners once carried the mined ore, the Underground Lake, the Golden Road, also known as the road of Long Life, Happiness and Peace, the Modern History Museum, Aqua World which is stocked with fish tanks, and the Media Facade on which a light and sound extravaganza is projected. Sadly, we’re there at the wrong time to enjoy it.

We stop at the golden statue of Aisha, and touch the gold coins in her hand, a gesture that according to legend grants prosperity and happiness in the future, and visit “The Lord of the Cave”, a 41-metre-long dragon sculpture by Weta Workshop that conjures up images of “The Lord of the Rings”, “The Hobbit” and “King Kong”.

As we approach the exit, we see a sign for Miner’s Spring Water, and the guide reminds us that the clean water inside the underground tunnels was a valuable commodity that quenched the miners’ thirst, and The Secret of Longevity gate, under which we pass to ensure longevity and good health.

We pass The Supernova of Wishes, a golden plaque wishing wall that’s full of other people’s wishes and finish our tour at the 200-metre wine cave, where we taste a variety of wines that enjoy a hearty lunch at the classy wine restaurant, Maru de Cave, which serves Korean beef steaks cooked by the leading chefs of high-end hotels.

On the way back to the parking lot, we notice a pink-painted building with a chimney. This, we’re told, is Gwangmyeong Resource Recovery Facility, a garbage incinerator that has been turned into a waste treatment plant equipped with high-tech systems that reduce pollution and produce energy for heating nearby homes. It also serves as an educational centre for local students and promotes eco-friendly resource circulation.

The parking lot is right next to the Gwangmyeong Upcycle Art Centre and we stop for a few minutes to marvel at how artists have transformed miners’ helmets and car wing mirrors into works of art.

For more information, visit http://www.GM.go.kr.

HAVING ALREADY visited some of the most recognisable places on an earlier trip, I’m keen to discover what else Busan has to offer on this, my second visit, to South Korea’s second most-populous city and the country’s economic, cultural and educational centre. I’m also excited about travelling in first-class on the high-speed KTX train for the first time – a trip that will take some two-and-a-half hours from the station in Central Seoul.

Visitors walk through the bamboo garden.

Once on the train, I make my travelling companions from Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam laugh by wondering out loud if a zombie virus might break out and threaten our journey, just as it did in the hit South Korea thriller “Train to Busan” back in 2016. But nothing could be further from the horizon as we settle with snacks and a free bottle of water from a vending machine while taking full advantage of the strong Wi-Fi signal and mobile charging.

I already know I will be returning on this trip to Nurimaru Apec House on Dongbaekseom Island, which was built to house the Apec meeting in the city and is today used as a conference hall. The three-storey building is a modern take on the traditional jeongja, or pavilion, with a roof shape symbolising the ridgeline of its home island and its terrace towering over Oryukdo Island, Gwangan Bridge and Dallmaji Hill.

Another stop will certainly be Haedong Yonggung Temple, a beautiful Buddhist temple on the shoreline, which boasts a three-storey pagoda with four lions symbolising joy, anger, sadness, and happiness in addition to 108 stairs and stone lanterns lining the rocky landscape.

But this time I am also taking in new sights and the first of these is F1963. The coach drops us off at a parking lot and we walk up the hill following signs for the Kiswire Centre and F1963. The entrance is a reddish brown door that looks like it’s made of rusty steel. It opens into a bamboo garden which, we learn, is testament to the entrepreneurial spirit and corporate philosophy of Kiswire. The qualities and characteristics of the bamboos resemble those of wires and like the bamboo tree that stands firm yet flexible on solid foundation, Kiswire has always been solely focused on wire.

F1963 Square A is for seminars, performances and concerts.

I learn the company’s short history from a sign. Kiswire is a global steel wire company that built its first factory in 1963 and later left it behind after relocating out of the city in 2008. Recently, the old factory underwent a major interior renovation with some of the intact factory machine parts decorated for the Busan Biennale. Now the 10,560 square metres of the former factory have been transformed into an art space similar to the Tate Modern Collection in London and the Lingotto Concert Hall in Turin and also serve as a multi-faceted cultural space. The “F” in the name stands for factory while “1963” denotes the year.

Before we begin our tour, an official suggests we follow three overlapping quadrangles. The innermost quadrangle is a prime outdoor space for concerts, performances, parties

and seminars. The second quadrangle is a commercial zone complete with Terarosa Coffee, a well-known hand drip coffee shop, and Praha 993, a Czech craft beer bar, while the outermost quadrangle refers to the exhibition hall.

Inside the factory-turned-cultural centre, we taste makgeolli (traditional Korean rice wine) at Boksoondoga, a beer brewed to the original recipe of Czech monastery brewers and made with ingredients imported from the Czech Republic at Praha 993, and finish with a cup of coffee at Terarosa Coffee.

Korean people enjoy a spot of relaxation at Terarosa coffee shop.

This coffee shop is well known for its made-to-order, hand-drip coffee, brewed with a variety of coffee beans including Guatemala Tulio and Ethiopia Yirgacheffee. In addition to freshly baked bread, the cafe serves croissants, scones, pound cake, cookies, tiramisu and tarts. I manage to resist the sweet treats and opt for an iced coffee instead.

The coffee shop is part of the used bookstore, which take up the remaining space, and is also used as a gathering place for artist and youth communities. The brick-and-mortar used bookstore is expected to expand various cultural contents through the concept of a “book”, and thus be much more than a place for selling titles.

During our visit, we have a chance to appreciate the works of British visual artist Julian Opie, who is showing for the first time in Busan. The exhibition features 48 works from his London studio as well as three large-scale installations of heads.

The outside is devoted to giant timber bamboo and water lilies. A sign explains that factory’s wastewater treatment plant has been transformed into an ecological garden, harbouring diverse species of bamboos, water lilies and aquatic wild plants. A nearby greenhouse offers visitors the opportunity to buy some cuttings as well as gardening equipment.

Characterised by a harmony between the old and the new – its remodelled interior and its restored exterior – F1963 is a great place to chill when you’re next in Busan.

The writer travelled courtesy of the Korea Tourism Organisation.

IF YOU GO

>> F1963 is easily accessed by public transport. Take Metro line 2 to Suyeong Station and use exit 5. Bus No 54 takes you to the Kiswire stop.

>> Alternatively, get off at Mangmi Station on Metro line 3 and use exit 2. Transfer to mini bus No 2 and get off at the Sanjeong Apartment stop. The centre is a short walk away.

>> For more information, please visit http://www.f1963.co.kr/en/