After a good night's sleep, woke up as the sun poked round the corner of the blackout curtains. After catching up with yesterday's Guardian on the iPad, we went for breakfast - again with harbour views. This is the view from the other side of the hotel.
After breakfast, we walked to the nearby station at Hung Hom (where I will catch the train up to where I will be teaching) and bought ourselves Octopus cards (like Oyster cards in the U.K,)/ On the way bck, decided that this could be Bristol, or Birmingham, or most other cities...
The walkway. Notice how clean it is - no rubbish for grumpy old men like me to grumble about!
We carried on walking and found ourselves in a square with lots of Hong Kong orchid trees, as well as loads of these footprints with different destinations. London was as close as we could find to Bath.
Most impressed by these signs in an open space. There was a designated smoking area in the corner of the square - with half a dozen men putting the world to rights while they puffed away.
We made our way on to the Tsim Sha Tsui promenade and headed westwards. As I am a water dragon in Chinese astrology, I could not resist this specimen!
We came to the "Avenue of the Stars", which celebrates Hong Kong cinema going back to the 1920s - with handprints in concrete a la Hollywood Boulevard. This statue of Jackie Chan attracted lots of wannabes for a snapshot.
Just along from there were two "United Buddy Bears", brought to Hong Kong by Jackie Chan "to promote love, diversity and harmony".
Lots of bronze statues along this stretch of harbour front with photo opportunities aplenty, and no shortage of willing poseurs.
We saw lots of people carrying inflatable plastic axes, and we came upon the source of them by a fenced off event. This was promoting something called "Elite Squad", which I guessed to be a TV series (there were dates of 25th February - 4th March on the side of posters). There was a stage with comperes, and people singing. Spotted these two with fetching trousers waiting to give a performance.
Just along from here, interesting building buttresses furnished a good photo opportunity.
Further on, we came upon these lanterns - presumably from Chinese New Year, as there were rats, roosters, pigs, goats, dragons etc. Looks like a colonial era tower in the background.
We then walked up Canton Road with all the brand shops - Rolex, Cartier, Hermes, DKNY etc. etc. until we broke off and made our way to Kowloon Park for a spot of quiet. Found a Chinese snackplace (surprisingly :-)!) and had a refreshing plate of noodles. Meandered back to our hotel - we are on 25th floor with views over where we walked today. The light show will get going soon, so we will soon go up to the top floor for a drink and a ringside seat.
Sunset was promising for tomorrow's weather (if "red sky at night" has the same connotations here, of course!)
We might venture out tonight - maybe to one of the night markets. Tomorrow we plan to stretch our wings a bit more, and explore further afield.
This day a year ago, at the end of another busy week at UWE I had neglected my blogly duties in favour of a curry down our local pub...
I thought you were going to stop blogging once you left Blighty so it was a pleasant surprise to see your post.
ReplyDeleteI too am wondering if the red sky is the same there. I suppose it depends which direction their weather front comes in. I suspect it is from an oceanic direction so probably not west.