Our last ferry ride for this trip

Small Hong Kong paintings

Above: Victoria Peak looking north to Kowloon
Below: Castle Road, Mid-Levels

Below: Part of the Dr Sun Yat-Sen Museum

Hong Kong photo dump days 1-6

Marcus's apartment is just out of shot to the right. This is Aberdeen Street, one of many parallel sloping down from Victoria Peak to the harbour. 

A kiosk-size artwork at Kowloon ferry port.

The ferrymen have natty uniforms and you can tell by their poles, they love the Tiges.

On our first four days we took mulitple ferry rides. They're cheap and a section at each end is air conditioned. The crossing to Kowloon is quite quick. Marcus lives about 10 minutes walk from the Hong Kong ferry terminal. And we were very lucky to find cheap and cheerful accommodation for two weeks just a block downhill from him.

It's an utterly vertical city. There are retaining walls like this everywhere, often with trees growing out of them. The roots are maybe helping hold them together but must occasionally do the opposite.

This is the Man Mo temple, just along Hollywood Road from Marcus. It's a traditional Buddhist temple. The beehive-shaped coils are incense which burns slowly up from the bottom while a big pan catches the ashes. It's open at the eaves and you can see the towers through that space.

In the courtyard of Man Mo temple.

For HK$18 (A$3.60) you can apply a square of gold leaf to this deer.

There are early 20thC wedding outfits at the Hong Kong Museum of History. A notable part of the 

cultural heritage of this area is the traditional wedding laments; sad songs that young women would sing before their arranged weddings as they were taken away from their families.

Hollywood Road, Marcus's neighbourhood. It immediately made me think of a cross between Lima in Peru and a swanky Melbourne suburb like Armadale.

Aberdeen Street again

Snacks outside the ferry terminal at Kowloon. I had a rice triangle with a goopy inside of sauteed clam in soy sauce.

Hong Kong Journal 🇭🇰 Day 6

Sunday 18.6.23 We had breakfast way up the hill in Staunton St at Barista. Big thunderstorm this morning. Marcus, Michael and I took the Mid Levels escalator to the top.

 

(Elf stayed in the aircon at Marcus's). We rubbernecked at the pistachio-coloured mosque. 

Then walked through tall apartment blocks with security and parking at the base. Bamboo scaffolding, incredibly high. Some wonderful 19/ early 20th C buildings on the way down; very expressive shapes.

 

Back to Marcus's, with a plan to walk to the Peak Tram. Torrential rain, I didn't have my umbrella but needed to go down to get my shoes. Had to use my sandals sparingly, tended to blister. I was near saturated when i found the umbrella in my backpack.

The tram goes up at about 25° angle,  v steep. You lean back on the ride up and again on the ride down which goes backwards.  The storm passed and our views were very fine. Remarkably tall buildings are constructed a long way up the slope.

Interesting 20s/30s buildings up at the top of the tram line by the modern lookout. 

The actual peak is some way further up. It's not like the pinnacle of Kunanyi – there are two shopping malls. 

The tram delivers you into a souvenir shop and 80% of people just go straight for the junk. It's hard to find your way out to the outdoors. There are no signs on purpose I guess. The lookout is 3 or 4 levels and we went down and up escalators for some time looking for the exit.

Once out there we walked about 40 mins return on a level path. Lovely waterfall above and below the path, and a view over to the west in the Kennedy Town direction.

We had lunch at Hungry Jacks and I had an ice cold pint. I'm drinking beer at most opportunities because I'm always hot and feeling like I've earned one.

Re-boarding to descend, some people were very pushy. I think there is a good side of the tram to be on, and they were determined to sew it up.

We walked back around to Central past the Ministry of the Interior, the Foreign Correspondents Club and the spooky former hospital. At 4pm we left Marcus to prep for work tomorrow. 

Hong Kong journal 🇭🇰 Day 5

 Sat 17 June

Great night's sleep. Lots of rain today. Breakfast at Green Waffle then off to Lantau Island to see the great big Tien Tan Buddha. 40 mins train ride. Then on the cable car, amazing ride but limited views due to heavy weather. At times were just alone in a cloud. The four of us had the car to ourselves but they're not big, probably max capacity of 6 or maybe 8.

At the top we bought a photo of ourselves looking slightly surprised by the photographer who leapt in front of us when the doors opened – we declined the snowglobe version.

We walked through Ngong Ping 'village' which is really one long gift shop. But we saw a gate and peeked through it at the real world, and saw a dog who saw us! Minor highlight.

We walked through fairly heavy rain towards the very large Buddha in the distance. He is very serene. A large square opened up with a staircase up to the Buddha which took about 10 minutes to climb, then we wandered around him, and inside to look at an exhibition of artwork and photos of his construction which was very interesting. Buddhists from all around the world contributed to the cost.

Hong Kong journal 🇭🇰 Day 4

Fri 16 June

Marcus is back at work - he's taking the two Wednesdays and Thursdays off while we're here.

Today we had breakfast at Everbright in Peel St, just around the corner from ours. Lady chef who writes cookbooks, a bit of a minor star. Clippings on the wall. One bench inside and tables out in courtyard which are unusable in the rain. (On our 3 visits we only once successfully stayed out at a table). 

Peel Street is parallel to Aberdeen St, another very steep slope, and its pedestrian only. At the bottom is a stall where a man sells fishtanks and fish. Then a stall where Elf bought some classic Chinese gold and red tassled lampshades. Then there's a vegetable stall where a lady and her ancient mother sell a range if produce but pride of place is taken by a massive green marrow/melon. It was there throughout our visit. One day it suddenly was cut and one third was gone.

After breakfast we got washing done, read and snoozed. I found the local supermarket that the Airbnb host had mentioned. The way he described to get there was blocked by a major construction project; although he lives in HK he seems not to have visited the neighbourhood for some time.

I bought some "salted eggs" which I assumed were hard boiled - they turned out to be raw.

We spent Friday evening at Marcus's watching TV, the best of everyone’s YouTube faves.

Some pics from the entrance and stairs of Marcus's apartment block.