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If you stay in Indonesia on a tourist visa, you must leave every 60 days to renew it. We pseudo-ex-pats call it a visa run. The most popular destination is Singapore, because it's the closest and the cheapest, and you can buy all the good Western stuff they don't sell in Bali. But on my last visa run, I decided to go to Hong Kong. I hadn't been there since 1996, when everyone was in a bother about the imminent hand-over of the crown colony to China. There was ominous talk of a brain drain, the impending death of democracy and, worst of all, a decline in capital. Most of the scare talk came from the Brits; I vividly recall my guide, a well-educated Chinese woman in her mid-20s, telling me, "Even if things get worse, it will be better, because we will be with China again."

View Wines You Might not See in Hong Kong

I wanted to see for myself if things really were better or worse.

The most obvious difference this time was arriving at the new airport. No one who ever landed at Kai Tak, the old airport which closed to commercial airline traffic in 1998, will ever forget it: It was one of the most thrilling aeronautical experiences a civilian could have. The plane swooped out of the sky over Kowloon and dropped through the skyscrapers onto the single runway. Pilots had to undergo special training and licensing before they were permitted to land there. Once you were on the ground it was a terrible airport, virtually devoid of services and obviously too small for such a busy port.

The new airport at Chek Lap Kok, miles out of town on a patch of reclaimed land on Lantau Island, is everything a new airport should be, a vast ultra-modern palace of glass and steel, a smoothly functioning machine (once they got all the bugs out -- the first few weeks were a disaster). But I missed Kai Tak. The new airport lacks character; it's almost indistinguishable from the vast ultra-modern palace of glass and steel they built for the new airport in Kuala Lumpur. These new monster terminals in Asia have the same agenda as the cathedrals of medieval Europe: Make the visitor feel tiny and insignificant, and do a lot of walking.

There are a lot of interesting things to do in Hong Kong, but if you've been there before, the most enticing activities are shopping and eating. I'm not much of a shopper, though I did break down and buy a digital camera so I could send snapshots home. With a bit of haggling I beat the best price I could find in the U.S. by $50. However, I'm an expert eater, and there's no better place in the world to do it. Hong Kongers are the foodiest people in Asia, with the possible exception of Tokyo. They love to eat out here, and they are as finicky as New Yorkers. If your shop's noodles are too limp, or not limp enough, you'll be out of business soon.

On my first few visits to Hong Kong, I explored the fabulous universe of Chinese food: Succulent Peking duck, delicate Cantonese, fiery Sichuan, rich Shanghainese, exotic Chiu Chow and that world unto itself, dim sum. It ruined Chinese food at home forever. But on this trip, it wasn't Chinese food I was hankering after. The main advantage to living in Asia, as opposed to traveling here, is that you can eat at home. What's more, you don't have to be rich to have a maid who will cook it for you, and do the washing up after. I love Indonesian food -- it's rich, oily and spicy, like the food I grew up with in Texas. But every once in a while I get homesick for a steak, for real pasta, for something cooked in butter and smothered with a fancy sauce, served after the soup and before they bring the dessert menu.

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