Yes, these are Chinese, Mandarin to be more precise.
And indeed the first two ideograms combined mean Hong Kong.
The first character is xiang (pronounced sian) and means incense - sweet fragrant
The second character is gang which means water lane, harbor, port.
And these two combined make the name of Hong Kong.
The third character is yong which means eternal, eternity, eternally, forever.
The forth charactrer is li which means ancient tool, and comes from the combination of the ideograms, grain and knife.
And the last character is wei, comes from the ideograms of woman and kill and means awe, auhority, fear, might.
The two photos contain the same ideograms.
I hope that covers your questions.