Hong Kong
Home to over 7 million people a place of towering sky scrapers and lush jungle.
No place I have ever been has felt as alive as Hong Kong, everything buzzes with activity. Cut into the side of the mountains many of the cities lanes are simply long staircases or in one case the worlds longest escalator.
A signature Hong Kong Taxi
Having only a very small portion of an already very small place available to build on, buildings here are big. Just so big. Often on very small foot prints they reach up over 60 stories in many cases. With huge shortage of housing prices for even vary small apartments are insane.
This was one of the lower density suburban areas (above) even then the scale of all the buildings and the tinny foot prints are crazy. The apartment I stopped by in was a 2 bed about 30m2 and costs 10 million HK $1.8 million Aus. It’s hard to believe that for same price you could get a nice house in Sydney’s inner west.
A city of commerce, everywhere you go there is someone selling something. All the smaller lanes are filled with market stalls that un-pack from little metal boxes to colourfull stalls selling everything from fake watches to live fish.
A concrete jungle and a like normal tree one too.
Thank you to my uncle Richard for pushing me to do this ‘walk’ up to not one but 3 of the finest and steepest peaks Hong Kong has to offer. It’s a view you have to earn with sweat, like so much sweat at 80% humidity I was just a big ol’ puddle. Despite celebrating his 60th birthday the following day he made it look like a piece of piss. In total we walked (jogged) for 4hrs, and went from massive metropolis to total wilderness and back again.
I can be seen here decidedly exhausted
Richard can be seen here not exhausted at all by the previous 2hrs of hill climbing.
Man Mo Temple
Built in the 1800’s Man Mo is a temple for the worship of the literature god Man Tai 文帝 and the martial god Mo Tai 武帝. The two gods were popularly patronized by scholars and students seeking progress in their study or ranking in the civil examinations in the Ming and Qing dynasties.
On a Boat
Taking the ferry across the harbour to celebrate fathers day with Dibbie’s parents. It was nice to take a step back from the city and see it from a distance. The lights of the office buildings looked a little dystopian through the smog. Most of the city is built on reclaimed land along the coast and every year new buildings go up as the city reaches further into the harbor.
