Hong Kong
Hong Kong
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Hong Kong is almost on the southern most point of the cost of China, a British colony between 1841 and 1st July 1997, it is now part China.
Initial arrival is no longer the impressive event of flying over the city at low level in a very large jet to land at Kai Tak. The new airport, HKIA, on the man made island of Chek Lap Kok is an easy landing with an open approach over the South China Sea. The airport is very impressive as is the public transport which takes you into town. You have a choice of (at least) taxi, bus and train, (also helicopter if you've got the cash). We took the HK Airport Express train (which was very cheap) to Tsim Sha Tsui (on Kowloon, part mainland China) where we changed to the hotel bus service which does the round of the main hotels. As you can see from the photo, the train from the airport was very well equipped with head rest monitors displaying a variety of channels including the trains current location, motor racing, shopping, tennis (historic Wimbledon) and a comical disasters channel ! Our hotel was the Hong Kong Hotel, a 4-star affair which we got for about 1/3rd of the price via Asia-Hotels.com. Our hotel was on Kowloon which meant we took the Star Ferry (which was about 1 minute walk from the hotel) to central each day. In the lower picture you can see a couple of Star Ferries, one arriving from central the other departing for Wan Chai. The tallest skyscraper in this picture is the new Bank Of China Tower, which we dubbed the X-Men building due to its architectural structure of big Xs which reminded us of the X-Men movie we had seen only a few weeks before the trip. This building deliberately has bad fueng shui, to show the bank is moving forward, breaking with tradition and controlling its own destiny. High on the hill behind the X-Men building is Victoria Peak from where you can get stunning views of HK. From the haze you can see in this picture you should deduce that HK is very humid. It was about 35 Celsius and 80% humidity while we were there - in late September. |
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No longer a British colony and still full of Chinese. Obvious I know, but people were everywhere, very difficult to find an empty spot anywhere. Buildings are tall and close together, not really claustrophobic
but 'busy' with pipes, neon signs, bits of apparel drying on lines hung between windows, and junk everywhere. The buildings were an interesting mix of traditional Chinese, colonial British and high tech modern architecture.
In the upper most picture to the right you see a typical view of central with modern steel and glass skyscrapers framing older concrete and brick buildings. In the first picture below you see a transport ship, viewed past the Star Ferry terminal and looking back toward Victoria Peak which can be clearly seen high up on the hill (this was a much clearer day). In the second picture below you can see a view of Central from just beside the main Star Ferry terminal on Kowloon (seen in foreground on left). Our hotel was just behind me in a large complex which included a huge shopping centre.
In the middle right picture you can see Helen and Tony on our first cross on a Star Ferry, first class, lightly air conditioned, which cost 2.2 HKD or about 22 pence. In the picture below that you see the 2nd class level (below the first class), no a/c, lots of people and only 1.7HKD or about 17 pence. |
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Space is at a premium and the Hong Kong people know how to use it, amazingly, their buildings were very large and had much larger open spaces than we're used to here in Europe.
I guess it's a show of power to have space, and all companies made the most of the vertical plane, making all their halls, office entrances, shopping arcades, public transport with very very tall ceilings. You could walk into a shopping arcade or even a train station and the ceiling to the next floor would be 20 meters (or more) away, quite breath taking at times. |
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Public transport was the best I've ever seen, whether by tram, bus, boat or taxi, it was very cheap, highly efficient, simple to use, air conditioned and so regular that
we started to think HK has a near infinite supply of public transport vehicles. We never had to wait more than 3 minutes for anything (unlike regular 45 minute waits
for equivalent transport in the UK). It only cost 4 HDK (about 40p) to go a few stops on the underground railway system, the MTR (Mass Transit Rail) and the entire system
only has a few stops (especially when compared to the tube in London).
So HK has a cheap, well maintained and regular public transport system.
Shopping arcades, they were everywhere, every hotel, office block, public and private building had something below it (even below ground). Often it was a maze of interconnected arcades, massive in scope and size, enough to put to shame the meagre out-of-town developments popular in the UK and slowly gaining popularity in Europe. None of that for HK, bang in the middle of everywhere is their style. |
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Although HK central is a very built up area, the authorities have spared no expense in providing open green areas to relax in. Hong Kong park is
a perfect example of this, located about 1/4 of the way up the slope, still among the skyscrapers it affords relaxation and a spectacular
mix of views of technology and nature. The aviary there is the best I have ever seen, puts the one at London zoo to real shame. It's a massive
walk in area, took us 45 minutes to traverse, but then we were going slowly, enjoying this recreation of a rain forest, smack bang in the middle
of HK.
To the right you see the area where we took Tai Chi lessons in the morning, the chap standing on his head was there each day, the entire time we spent there (about 1 hour) and didn't move or fall over once. |
Night Fall at Victoria PeakTake the tram ride up to Victoria Peak, quite an experience in itself as Hong Kong is very steep
in places.
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We visited Lantau island by taking a Fast Ferry (name of the line), first class as the price was really cheap. On the island is a temple,
high in the mountains, where w saw the worlds biggest outdoor bronze Buddha. Very impressive, we stayed at the temple for quite some time and
spent a while listening and watching the monks during afternoon prayers.
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| The Buddhist monks live a simple life, their temple shows their devotion and love to Buddha as it is well tended and impressively decorated. As with all my pictures this one was taken without a flash, but a long exposure time, the camera was held up against the temple wall and I held my breath for about 6 seconds while I exposed the film. |
| We visited Stanley on the south side of the island, its a beach front, tourist, leisure, market area. We took the long route on the bus, over the mountain, which afforded us spectacular views of HK island and particularly of all the small bays on the south side, away from central which are much less developed. I can recommend the market especially as you can get many branded (copy) goods as well as real HK memorabilia really cheap. As I paint I bought myself a really good set of painting materials, brushes, inks etc, and luckily didn't buy them at the first place I saw them. Shop around as the price can vary by as much as 150%. One shop may sell its clothing cheap, but wooden materials really expensive, the one next door may do the opposite, so look first. |
| One of the traditional views of HK are the Sanpan's, wooden boats used as both housing and transport. The only place left where these can be seen in their more traditional environment is at Aberdeen. The Aberdeen we took left from the HK MTR station and took the short cut under the mountain through the man made tunnel to the south side of the island. It only took about 15 minutes and cost about one pound is pretty good value to cross an island. When you get to Aberdeen, get off when you see the very tall housing buildings you see in the picture, the Sanpan's are in the water below. Old women in hats will chase you around offering you rides in their boat. The price is pretty cheap, about 10GBP but we had been on so many rides that we didn't bother with these. |