previously Hong Kong, one photo a day (Feb 13th 2006 — Feb 13th 2008), now posting archive photos of cities I’ve been to
A bit of traditions hong kong photos lanterns sheung wanOne of the people living in the sparkling city (see yesterday’s photo) — this lady works in a lantern shop and kindly agreed to let me take this photo while she assembled a “starfruit” lantern. We chatted for a while and she was sooooooo nice, just before I left I found out her last name is also “Tang”, which is same as mine.
Link: another shot of some assembled starfruit lanterns
hong kong photos Scenic Scenic/View victoria harborI had pondered which photo to post since last night. Personally, I like the colors and light of the other one taken at 6:30 pm(Tags: the Peak|Victoria Harbor|Hong Kong|photos
Today, I made a trip to the Peak before sunset and took about 200 photos. If I post them all, they would last until March 2007, LOL. Anywaz, this photo was taken around 6 pm when tourists were getting ready for one of the world’s best night scenes. No HK photoblog is complete without a night scene from the Peak, and HKDP will be made complete tomorrow. 
(Michelle, are you ready for the king of cliche?)
Link: the Peak
City life father and daughter hong kong photos watch tvDo you watch TV while having dinner? Well, HK people often do; TV goes well with rice as some jokingly say. I took this photo last night with my cellphone at a self-service restaurant. I was surprised to see that they have installed some small TVs on the tables. Maybe because more people are eating alone these days? But what a pity. Wouldn’t it be nice if this father and daughter could share some quality time chatting instead?
Animal birds cyberport hong kong photos office buildingsAround 5:30 pm a few days ago, outside some office buildings in CyberPort, birds of the same feather flock together for Happy Hour…beer? Probably not but maybe they’ve got some peanuts. If you look closer, you’ll see another bird at the centre background…not of the same feather so it’s a loner ;p
A bit of traditions hong kong photos lanterns sheung wan starfruitIt’s been a long time since the last lantern photo, TEN DAYS exactly! I think I’ve waited long enough. I went to Sheung Wan where there’s a half block of shops specializing in making laterns and other paper products; as you can see we have lanterns in the shapes of rabbit, starfruit, accordion and of course, fish.
Seeing this fish lantern reminds me of the fish series in late February and that was FUN, if you want to revisit or if you haven’t seen them the links are here: paper goldfish, fengshui fish, floral anglerfish, Victoria and the fish, new dish, dinner fish, and I ended the series with a post on cats…;-)
Scenic/View TsimShaTsuiJust a photo to show you the Victoria Harbor on a busy day. This photo was taken from Central (HK island) looking towards Tsimshatsui and western Kowloon. Lots of activities going on with the hydrofoil, barges, ferry, a couple of small boats and even two helicopters, and just behind that giant advertisement of mooncake is a cruise ship at the terminal.
To me, these wigs are the creepiest, probably because of a local ghost story about a wandering spirit in a university campus with long hair and no face…I took this photo in broad daylight, no way I would go near them when it’s dark, what if they turn around…
LOL, Felicia of San Diego DP asked if the creepiest one would be a George W Bush mask (see yesterday’s footprints); that’s a good one Felicia, I have already shown a Bush mask earlier in my…mmm…April 1st post.
Central Street scene
Magic Mirror on the wall, Who is the scariest one of all?
HK is busy and even more so when we have two highly commercialised festivals in October. While some check out the lanterns and ponder about mooncakes, some worry about Halloween…”what should I wear”?
The scariest one for me in this photo is the giant spider but tomorrow I’m going to show you the creepiest one of all ;p
Min described HK as a place for “mai dong xi chi dong xi” which is “shopping and eating” in Mandarin (see footprints of “Chinatown” post). It is quite true as you can see in this photo taken in Causeway Bay when a few tourists were heading to the “Food Forum” after a shopping spree. The Food Forum is a 4-storey space above a shopping mall with 20 fancy eateries, the red squares in the photo are actually a directory of those restaurants. Bon apetite!
Causeway Bay Street scene
It was hazy yesterday and I took this photo just before the reddish sun disappeared behind some thick haze. This is from CyberPort, the western end of the HK island. I think this cargo ship was entering the port, maybe with mustard and olives for the supermarkets?
Links: A pretty relief map of the HK Island and you can see the positions of CyberPort and some other districts I have shown before.
Monday…forget about lanterns, grocery shopping or lingering by the harbor. Most people, that’s including me, get back to work. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh… and I have an exam tonight on marketing, I need some luck ;-). That’s why we have an archive photo today, taken at the International Finance Center on a sunny day showing people in the “web”.
update: just got home after exam…I didn’t do very well and made a stupid choice, now I really need some LUCK 
hoping for a marginal pass…but I think I’ll forget about everything tomorrow. Thanks!
Have a good week everyone.
Extra: Wiki link to a Chinese historic event 75 years ago on this day
Scenic/View“THE BIGGEST CHINATOWN” — that is how HK is described in last night’s Globe Trekker TV special on Chinatowns around the world. This is the first time that I heard of this perception and I’m confused…it has never occurred to me before that I’m born in a Chinatown!!! LOL! Maybe that’s why I had mixed feelings during my 2-month stay in Beijing two years ago; maybe that’s why the culture, people and language were familiar and strange at the same time –because I was a Chinatown Chinese in real China?
Is that your perception of HK as well?
ps. today’s photo shows a replica of old fishing junk for tourists in the Victoria Harbor, it has engines and the sails are decorative
These are all soy sauce, a must-have for Chinese kitchens…dark soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, chili soy sauce, low sodium or premium…I believe there are even more varieties in the super supermarkets in the Mainland and Taiwan. For me, I don’t have the bottled ones but a bunch of those little packets I got from sushi delivery.
If you are interested here’s the website of one of the brands, you can also find some recipes there.
A bit of traditions Central Street sceneFrom now until the Mid-Autumn Festival, I think I’ll show you Chinese lanterns from time to time, because they are colorful, romantic (when lit with candles) and represent fun time for children. I didn’t realise the Festival is approaching until I saw this shop in Central yesterday.
ps. The Festival is on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month which falls on October 6th this year.
After a huge downpour in the afternoon which set off a rainstorm warning, the weather cleared up at night. We were happily back on the streets either shopping, heading to dinner places or just getting some fresh air in Causeway Bay.
I was at a supermarket and here’s a small section of the condiment shelf. Guess what I picked? Pitted olives and hot English mustard (very good!). Of course, we have a much wider range of soy sauce and oyster sauce. I’ll show you later.
AnimalThe symbol of peace (minus olive branch) gazing out at the sea — I took this photo at a beach a couple of weeks ago.
I went to Catholic school up until I finished secondary school so we prayed at school everyday. When I was small we prayed for world peace especially during Christmas and New Year. I thought then peace was something easily achieveable like getting good grade if we studied hard enough (yes, I was really small). I even thought when peace would be achieved next year we would move on to pray for something new. I sounded angry yesterday but well, we should never give up hoping, maybe we are approaching peace everyday though by nano millimetres.
A floral tribute not only to the 3,000 Americans who vanished five years ago, but also to the 60,000 plus civilian Afghans and Iraqis killed by the stupidity of the Bush administration in the last five years. Unlike the repeated replays and publications of images at the World Trade Center, not many images of how these people suffered and died, and how their families grieved were ever seen. These people existed, suffered or died as innocently as the Americans; their fate was sealed on that same day but there is no memorial, no books, TV specials and movies to remember them. I hope they are not forgotton by the world.
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