Hong Kong verticality from down below:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/picturegalleries/10048951/Hong-Kongs-vertical-horizons.html?frame=2559338
of the same photographer:
http://www.rjl-art.com/gallery.php?category=2&image=d
http://photomichaelwolf.com/#architecture-of-densitiy/16
more from australia: http://www.news.com.au/travel/world/hong-kong-forest-of-skyscrapers/story-e6frfqb9-1226577724134
Background: I’d looked at Google maps tens of times to familiarise myself with 1. how to get to our hotel and 2. what the whole place was like. I also wanted to find out about the Border, Kowloon and the island proper and the islands and parks and nature on offer in this densely populated corner of the world. Years before even deciding to visit the place I’d “walked the streets” on streetview.
We get to Shenzen from Shanghai, still kind of unclear how we were going to get to Hong Kong territory proper, whether by train bus or what and how long it'd take. I go up to a bunch of nice students, different nationalities, who were in our same flight and ask them. They knew not either, and the 7 of us we head to the info service by the baggage collection belt and ask, once landed. They claim there's not train or metro and that we must take a bus but fortunately, that bit of information I did know is a lie as there is most certainly trains and metro connecting to HK. Again, it pays to have done a bit of prior reading if you don't want to fall prey of their shenanigans. So, do do a bit of reading beforehand ...
Metro at airport to border:We walk out and immediately see the signs of trains, make a left on stepping out. the journey's dirt cheap, because it's still China, but not as much as in China proper. Shenzen - border 9 yuans, which we got from a machine after patiently queueing for what was a very long time, ages, in a very very slow moving queue. It shocked us their ability to jump the queue and laugh at your face! bribe other queuers to get them their tickets, etc. Very very hot and unpleasant there. Very very chaotic. Only 4 machines. Over one hour to get to the border proper.
Follow the signs, and off we head to immigration and customs. It kind of looks like a semi run-down shopping mall. It's pitch dark. It's all almost empty. The signs are for chinese/Hk citizens and foreigners. We sort out the paperwork and we get to the train station.
Now it's time to change money, yuans into HK dollars, so that we can purchase the Hong Kong train token.
We briefly chat to a dodgy looking Englishman who asked us whether we'd sorted our accommodation as it was a holiday, it'd be hard to find, etc. We got rid of him in a flash. We leave the guys behind when getting tickets and rush to platforms as there's a train leaving in a couple of minutes, surprisingly from the ticket machines to platforms's just a very short walk! Bought ticket from a machineto the end of the line, but not to our final stop..let’s see what happens. Quiet train. we change trains at the end of the line, to our destination aware that we hadn't purchased the ticket for that one.. we do it anyway, regardless of what may happen once there, we tried our luck. We tried our lack and have to pay the difference to get out, cool. It could have been a fine, and it’s just the difference. No going back, no fines, no reprimands. Tsim Tsha Sui. Darkish side-ish street, off Nathan road. Night time, but busy, and full of neon lights. Big canvas ad being propped down.
Walking up, or is it down?, before the busy street, and the lights of these shops glaring at full blast, and the big old neon signs as tall as a block of flats in Barcelona, bright, and colourful, with dodgy electricity and cabling here and there...it's just amazing to be here. Looks like the signs are going to fall off any time and kill the unfortunate passers-by underneath. Vertical, horizontal, big and smaller, most on, some off. Just like in the pics I'd seen. Incredible.
We walk until I see the big Rolex sign I’d seen on my streetview research. Odyssey as feared or preparation will pay off? It does! just like I'd seen it'd be. It does pay off to get informed, it certainly makes these things easier (might talk about this in some other entry).
Hotel? Worse room we’ll ever be/'ve ever been in. Ever.
I knew it'd be very small, I'd knew what to expect but still. It still comes a bit as a shock! but it's small and affordable or just too expensive. We've got a window, which is a very good deal in HK and a tiny private bath, of course! About the water tank... we’ve got to fill it with the shower thingy, not tank lid, very very small. The lady of the room asks for more money because it’s a holiday, hubbie gets pissed of because of the size of the room, ...now that I remember, I’d only booked it in case I didn’t find anything thing else better, but i fear that the moment I made the reservation, this felt like one thing off the list!
Hong Kong, like anything else we've seen in china, blows-your-mind, is mind-blowing, it’s unbelievable, astonishing. The one thing I remember is people queuing to go into the Prada shop well before opening time. People dragging wheelie cases which I am sure were going to be loaded with their expensive purchases. A lot of money being flaunted around there. Amazing, new and luxiriours-looking shopping centres, top-end shops and customers to satisfy their egos with expensive and luxury goods and cars up and down the streets and parked by pavements Lamborginis were the norm!
Morning: We have breakfast, coffee on Nathan road- across the Park, go up to the quays, we walk down Canton road, Victoria, Salisbury road (avenue of stars, take in the famous skyline), preparations for party, ... narrow streets, lunch,... afternoon: TinHau temple- really liked it, Jade market, ManLing Lane area, ..market, wet market and all sorts of colourful food, temples, fire, snails, ...old people, fireworks in Sheraton, throngs of people walking down, spanish family in Sheraton lift, ... no card, stuck in there...dinner at posh restaurant (nice food, last minute arrival. Spicy sauce that we buy after getting name – tastes like sobrasada).
Island, day 2: metro to Central. Cat street, antique shops, (toilet in a hotel just before) Man mo temple..in the island,
Geocaching under the blazing heat.
Buildings: old and shabby and crumbling it would appear from the outsider, well below the standards of Health and Safety in the UK at first sight. Iron bars, electricity cables, small windows blackened by dirt and pollution and time. High and low, new and glass right next to old ones. No taste, need for vertical accommodation prevails. Textile workshops on 10th floors, business inside what looks like a flat. Appearance of dodge right next door to an expensive-looking mall that connects to the underground station and it has live on its own, as big as an entire small village in England. Some are really dodgy looKing, the Lumber of high-rises is probably higher than in in NY in an area half the size of Liechestein, in a whooping only 80.5 km2 of the HK island only. Seen from a 55th floor of the IFC (International Finance Centre) is an abherration to nature. The need for verticality to acommodate the “needs” in this tiny, hilly island has led to this lack of sense of aesthetics and incongruity. The past and present. Old and new. Modernity and tradition hand in hand in narrow streets full of contrast. This leads me to the beautiful Buddhist temples sometimos tucked away in lush squares like Tin hau in Kowloon or Man Mo in Central, near Cat street. Just cool. Looking back, i really liked the place (not that I didn’t then) but it’s just very me. Peace and quiet of temples and hassle and bustle of city life. The incense and the lamps and devoted prayers to chubby budas and dusty shelves and candle lit corners. Side streets with chinese medicine shops with lots of weird roots in crystal jars, the ready bowls of tea,
The elevated roads to make double use of the space, airconditioned shopping malls which connect to metro stations and take you to another street level. It’s all a bit confusing, a tangle of lanes, streets, elevations and escalators!
The picnics of the Philippino female community were absolutely everywhere, ubiquitous across the city, always in the shadow, away from the blazing heat. For the purpose of propecting their stuff and setting limits to their groups, cartoon boxes unfolded, squared-shaped crèche-like things were set up, plastic sheets and food and their mobile phones to snap themselves on pics and a big smile on their faces. No men, only women! When I asked about their men, they said they were at sporting events, they thought. There is a big populations of Philippinoes in HK and the ladies work as housemaids and cleaning ladies there. They are all the time, all, taking pictures of themselves, whether alone or with friends I’d never seen this degree of vanity in public, and giggling and smiling, what happy people they seem to be. Waving at me if I looked at them in awe, surprise and somehow, envy. I asked them why there were so many women around and they said it’s a bank holiday and that men were had gone to sports matches or something. It was a pleasure to see them having such fun with such simple thing as a picnic with friends and a nap after tugging into food in the shadow of tree, tunnels, etc.
update 5.2.204 just listened to https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001ts32 podcast with Anneck Rise Your place or mine , bbc programme
and this has triggered an google search about HongKong and has made me once again that i often go to these remote exotic places and know nothing about the sights individually. I go there because I am taken there by my travel companion, the one with the map and the route within the city or town, and ..i just follow, finger on the shutter of my camera ready ready to look and shoot but with no "interest" about it there, on the spot. this comes after, when I've transfered the pics onto my computer...
it's a pity. I'd need a lot more time...see, pictures and sit and read/chat with sb to tell me about the site..etc
go beyond: can i go in? who has lived in here? is there any "past" to be seen? when did it change? are people happy with what it is now? go up and down? explore further. ask questions.
but maybe it's because most of it wsa just new, or if felt new- designers stores, and it ...lent itself to experiencing it more than knowing about it? who knows. but its colonial past (alsmost erradicated?)
no en recordo la xafogor
fotos:
hores i llevar-se d'hora depen on per no trobar molta gent, o el sol/llum adequat per la foto...differents moments del dia
