Random city photos

One more Chinese lesson? This is the sign of a furniture/household items shop and to you, it can serve as a learn-a-word picture card. The pronunciation is “wun ying” in Cantonese, and I’m sure you know what it means now. Hope you don’t have insect phobia.

Since you notice that driving direction is different; and some of you are thinking about visiting, let me show you this — once in a while you’ll see these big signs on the ground reminding people which way to look when crossing the road…also, taxi is red in HK. See this lady has Burberry pattern umbrella and bag…must be a big fan.

How much can I tell you about HK from this photo?
This is a 16-seat public mini van…we use electronic stored value card for fare payment (the dark grey device)…they take cash too, of course (the beige box with green label)…the LED is a speedometer…if the driver speeds, we can call 9277 7643 to report…it was 5:12 pm when I took this photo…it was sunny yesterday…and obviously it was not easy for me to get a properly leveled shot on a mini van…

This photo reminds me of a post in Paris Daily Photo showing a lady with red outfit matching pefectly with the color of a shop window. I was trying to photograph the blue and white decoration along the Star Ferry walkway when this lady with the matching blue sweater rushed into frame.

As far as I know, these are called “incense tower”. I found this roadside worship place in an alley I walk past from time to time, but had never taken much notice of. From what I heard when I took the photo, it is a Taoist worship place. I only managed to take a few shots because it was very very smokey.

Mr Dove: It’s sunday, and I need a break from being chased by those kids…
A dove taking a nap in the Victoria Park.
ps, beautiful stripes on its feather…

How do you get 50 kids in a group photo and capture the nano second when nobody blinks or looks away? I took this photo in a park and I stood next to the group’s photographer, until I heard somebody asked: who’s that? :p

This big red velvet chair is the signature of Pacific Coffee, a local chain cafe which started here before Starbucks did. There are, inevitably, different opinions as to whose coffee is better but the comfy chair surely earns extra credit for Pacific Coffee. They are tailor-made and when asked from where, the staff wouldn’t tell. I really want one for myself.

p.s. please let me know if HKDP doesn’t show up ok on your side with this new layout. Thanks

The walk from Emporio Armani (also seen yesterday) to the new Bape store probably takes about 5 minutes. Though it may take 5 hours for those who decide to check out all these stores along the way. The HQ of HSBC is nearby so in case they need some service…

I think the facade of the Harvey Nichols store is beautiful, and credit to Coco Chanel for her quotation in today’s title.

Let’s go shopping today.
This is the very heart of Central, which is the heart of HK. Here we have an Italian fashion empire face to face with a French one :-). Don’t think their customers take buses, so the bus stop is probably for people like me who take photos but not the merchandise. See another shot and the answer to yesterday’s (obviously easy) “guess who” quiz here.

I took this photo in Central, the bright red flowers are of cotton tree (literally red cotton in Chinese, aka hero tree) which blooms gloriously in spring and there are many of them around. Here’s a beautiful shot by my friend and see a whole tree here.

In the background is a giant advertising billboard and it is the eye of a movie star looking at you. Guess who?

I am so amazed by this 4 m x 6.5 m stamp mosaic of HK’s waterfront. The description says it took nearly 1 year for post service staff and their families to make, using used stamps collected locally and from 98 overseas postal administrations.

See the buildings in yesterday’s photo? I almost couldn’t resist posting multiple photos today, but click here and enlarge, you’ll see the beautiful details.

It was sunny yesterday and after a few days in an older district, I want to show you another side of the city.

These buildings dominated the Central district, the heart of the world's 10th largest trading entity and 11th largest banking centre. They are, from right, Citigroup, Bank of China, Cheung Kong Centre (of the world's 10th richest man Li Ka Shing), HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank.

New buildings have mailboxes like Excel cells, but old buildings have “character” mailboxes that can tell stories.

In this case, people at unit A tried too hard on mailbox security — their mail can’t even go through the narrow opening, the G/F unit seems to have the opposite attitude; people on 1/F reads the Financial Times, the 2/F occupant has a tax notice, and the 3/F is shared by Riminton and Taguchi…(trust me, I don’t spy on mailboxes, I’m just doing this for you!)

Let’s step back a little to look at the building in yesterday’s photo.

It is really a matter of perspective of how we see things and how we judge them beauty or beast. I never expected the old building would come out nicely in photo and only took one shot of it. Like some city photo bloggers have noted, we keep discovering new things in our cities that we didn’t see before. These statues stood outside of an antique store waiting to be picked up.

I would say most apartment buildings in HK are not as beautiful as those in Barcelona or Paris. But older buildings built after WWII such as this one stand witness of a time when the city was striving to recover and practicality had all the priority. Not much design with this one but it is in the area where my grandma lived so I think I can show you what I saw as a child — TALL buildings.

I took this from a small slope so the orange “pizza” sign is actually of the ground floor shop.

I just realised when I looked at other Daily Photo blogs that I haven’t shown you HK at night. How could I? For a city which sparkles at night, there are also quiet corners such as this neighborhood store. It opens till late at night and is one of those friendly stores where owners chat with customers and if you forget to bring your wallet, you can get things and pay later.

Have you heard of HK director Wong Kar Wai? Well, I’m not a fan but I like some of his movies. I spotted this in a 50+ year old herbal tea shop in Central (see this photo), these colors and the nostalgic mood surely remind me of Wong’s movies. BTW, Wong’s Happy Together gave me my first impression of Buenos Aires, but now of course I refer to Karine and Cynthia’s photoblogs.

Hong Kong Daily Photo is one month old!

While I have enjoyed myself bringing images of HK life to you, I have yet to overcome a few things, eg, taking photos of people on the streets is still tricky to me.

Therefore, you can imagine my joy when I went to the Flower Show and found there were as many photographers as there were flowers, and people just didn’t care if you were pointing your camera at them. To get an idea of how the show was dominated by cameras, see also here.

Of the many exhibits this year, I find this entry in a design competition most interesting. I forgot to check if this one wins but it did stand out from the other entries. How do you like it?