across the border

Paula recently discovered that, as Hong Kong residents, we could apply for a card that would give us unlimited access to mainland China without having to carry any other form of identification, including a passport:

Of course, we still need our Hong Kong ID cards to exit and re-enter Hong Kong.

A few days ago, we visited Shenzhen for the second time under this system. On both occasions, we’ve caught a bus on Sha Tau Kok Road, a five-minute walk from our house, which terminates at Heung Yuen Wai Port. On our first visit, we simply took the Shenzhen Metro to Lo Wu, the northern terminus of the MTR’s East Rail Line, which is just two stops from Fanling. However, on our second visit we wanted to start exploring, which is what we did. While there, I took quite a few photos, which I present here, with occasional comments.

I couldn’t resist taking the first photo, which shows Burger King and McDonald’s next door to each other, immediately upon exiting the Heung Yuen Wai immigration centre:

I was surprised to see two competing brands set up so close to each other.

We then took the Metro, just four stops to Grand Theater, one of the few stations on what is now an extensive network with an English name. Incidentally, because we are both over 65, we get to travel free on the Shenzhen Metro. All we need to do is show our Hong Kong Octopus cards, which include a photo ID, to a member of staff who is manning a separate entrance gate for seniors.

We didn’t see any signs of a theatre when we reached street level, but I was immediately impressed by this pointy skyscraper behind what appears to be a residential block:

I took the next photo partly because of the cotton tree (these trees have been flowering profusely in Hong Kong this year), although the building immediately behind does look interesting:

I took this photo because of the red projection on the side nearest the camera of what appears to be an office building:

I can’t help wondering what lies behind the blue windows.

And this is a hotel:

Quite a posh one too, I would guess.

Another odd-looking building, with the projecting bits near the top:

The main buiding in the next photo appears to be an upmarket residential block, but I took the photo because of the building closer to the camera, which appears to have had one of its upper corners broken off:

The next photo shows what I conjecture is a high-speed train, given the obvious streamlining:

I didn’t do a good job when taking the next photo. The object in the foreground appears to be some kind of avian creature, but I would like to have captured more of the building in the background (I cropped off quite a large area of featureless concrete at the bottom, and I would like to have captured more of the building in the background, the face of which is much more extensive than you can see here):

I’ve no idea what this artwork represents, but I had to take a photo:

By this time, we’d reached another Metro station, but before we headed home we thought we might as well walk around a little more. We’d spotted what appeared to be a traditional Chinese building in the distance:

As you can see, there appears to be quite a lot of construction taking place here, and what we’d thought was a traditional building is probably a modern shopping mall, judging by the McDonald’s sign on the roof.

This is a view of the same building from a different side:

The intended subject of the next photo is the tradional Chinese bell, but I had to include the building in the background because of the unusual shape of its windows:

And then we boarded a Metro train to Lo Wu. However, we needed something to eat before heading home, and we opted for a Chinese restaurant in a nearby hotel. This is the view from the restaurant that we enjoyed while eating:

After we had enjoyed our lunch, we went through immigration again and caught a train to Fanling. I’ve no idea where we will go the next time we cross the border, but the general plan is to take the Metro to a random station and simply walk around, much as we did on this occasion.

egrets in our local river

Yesterday afternoon, Paula and I went for a walk down the Ng Tung River, which I usually refer to casually as ‘our local river’. This isn’t as straightforward an endeavour as it was a few years ago, largely because the construction of the so-called ‘Fanling North Bypass’ blocks progress down the one-time Drainage Services access road that once ran alongside the north bank of the river. We were on our way home when I spotted a large number of egrets through the space underneath one of the footbridges across the river:

You probably can’t see anything on this photo, so here is an enlarged version of the relevant part of the picture:

I took the next photo from the footbridge:

…followed by a series of shots as I walked along the makeshift temporary road that runs along the south bank of the river:

That was yesterday, and this morning, when walking back home from Luen Wo Hui, I reached the temporary road slightly further downstream than usual and saw another spectacular gathering of egrets:

The bridge that you can see in this photo will eventually carry the ‘bypass’.

And this a closer view of the concentration of egrets in the bottom right-hand corner of the previous photo:

I walk along the river frequently, but most of the time I don’t see any egrets, or at most two or three. Where do they go when they’re not in the river? Surely they need to feed, and there are a lot of fish in this river. I hope to find out the answer to this conundrum eventually.

peak viewing

“Let’s go up the Peak,” suggested Paula recently.

Victoria Peak, the highest summit on Hong Kong Island, is the only major mountain in Hong Kong that I don’t know the Chinese name of. However, it’s always been simply ‘the Peak’, hence the wording of Paula’s suggestion. How to get there is the first problem. We can get a train from Fanling to Admiralty station on the island side (this line used to terminate at Hung Hom, on Kowloon side, but was extended by the MTR a few years ago), followed by a short walk to Central. From here, if you’re a tourist, you will probably take the Peak Tram (actually a funicular railway), but we always take the bus, mainly because the views are far superior—on the tram, you’re tilted backwards at an obscene angle, so you can’t see much, although if you’ve never tried it, then you should. Just once though.

The bus terminates next to the upper terminus of the tram, so there’s no effect on what you might want to do next. It is possible to continue uphill on foot, although the actual summit of the Peak is inaccessible because it houses a radio station. We always start by walking along Harlech Road, which contours the southern side of the Peak. There are occasional views to the south, but nothing particularly impressive. And despite the crowds around the tram terminus, it’s relatively quiet on this road, with few people and almost no traffic:

I never notice at what point we find ourselves on Lugard Road, which crosses the northern slopes of the Peak with no major gradients, ending eventually at our starting point. However, according to the government map Harlech Road continues straight on where Lugard Road branches off to the right somewhere around the col that separates the Peak from nondescript higher ground to the west. The last time we visited the Peak, we encountered a couple of young wild pigs around the col, and I shot quite an intimate video:

The individual that accounted for the bulk of the time in this video was probably expecting to be fed. Incidentally, I hadn’t realized that there are wild pigs on the island side, although I’ve seen many of these creatures in the New Territories.

I’d carelessly neglected to charge my phone before this excursion, and we spent some time in Hong Kong Park, where I took more than 60 photos, before catching the bus to the Peak, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when my phone decided to switch itself off to conserve power as we walked along Harlech Road. Consequently, I asked Paula to take some photos whenever a gap appeared through the trees as we walked along Lugard Road. What follows is a selection of her photos, with occasional explanatory comments from me.

The first two photos are views of what might be called the ‘western approaches’ to the harbour:

Almost all the high-rise blocks that you can see in the foreground of these photos are residential buildings. The buildings in the distance in the second photo are part of the town of Tsuen Wan, the northern terminus of the MTR’s Tsuen Wan Line to Central, one of the first lines to be constructed in what is now a very extensive network.

And this was our first view of the harbour, with a glimpse of the building that dominates the view towards Kowloon:

I don’t know the name of the building, which is located on land reclaimed from the sea since the handover to Chinese rule in 1997. The entire reclaimed area is known collectively as ‘West Kowloon’.

The next photo provides a fairly comprehensive view of Kowloon:

You will notice that there aren’t many super-high buildings. The reason for this situation is that when Hong Kong’s airport was located at Kai Tak, in eastern Kowloon, a height restriction (18 storeys) was in force. Notice too the line of mountains in the distance. ‘Kowloon’ means ‘Nine Dragons’ in Chinese, referring to these mountains. I can’t positively identify any of these summits apart from the one on the far right, which is Fei Ngo Shan (‘Flying Goose Mountain’), better known simply as ‘Kowloon Peak’.

The next two photos are essentially the same view from different angles:

Notice that there are now quite a few commercial buildings in the foreground. This is because the area below is the central business district, better known simply as ‘Central’.

These are views looking east along the harbour (shots taken from different locations):

The final four photos are general views from different positions, which I present without further commentary:

One final comment: it would seem from many observations over the years that a majority of people who follow this walk do so in the opposite direction. This might seem like the logical direction to follow—spectacular views almost straight away—but if you follow Lugard Road first, Harlech Road is going to seem like an anticlimax. We will always circumnavigate the Peak in a clockwise direction!

shepherd’s warning

You’re probably familiar with the old nautical proverb:

  Red sky at night,
  Sailor’s delight.
  Red sky at morning,
  Sailor’s warning.

However, I come from a part of England where wool was a major part of the local economy for hundreds of years, until a rapacious king, Henry VIII, confiscated the accumulated wealth of the mediæval monasteries, including Furness Abbey, which had been responsible for introducing sheep onto the fells of the Lake District in the first place (fell derives from the Old Norse word for ‘mountain’—all the local words for topographic features derive from Old Norse). Nevertheless, sheep (and shepherds) remain a fixture on the fells, and locally the familiar wisdom attributed elsewhere to sailors I automatically assign to shepherds.

The purpose of this digression is to serve as an introduction to what I saw this morning. I always enjoy my morning coffee sitting on the roof of our house, where I can listen to the cacophony of the dawn chorus (mostly crested mynahs), but I’d no sooner put my coffee down than I had to rush back downstairs to get my phone. Here’s why:

I took both these photos at 6.10am, and the next two at 6.20am:

…with this one just a minute later:

I took the next two photos at 6.28am to illustrate how far across the sky the colour had spread. This was the view looking southwest:

…and this is what it looked like to the northwest:

I took my final photo at 6.30am, when the display had reached maximum intensity:

Notice what appeared to be a perfectly circular yellow curve (it was much more obvious in reality).

And as for the dire warning that is enshrined in the Cumbrian shepherd’s message? It’s been sunny all day!