Hong Kong Day 2

Having spent the night in Hong Kong, we have the chance to explore more today. We’ve opted for a walking tour and start off in a traditional cafe where we have coffee and custard tarts or pineapple buns - neither of which we’re particularly interested in as it’s not long since breakfast. Still, it’s the local experience that is important, and we do try each of the pastries - well, it would be rude not to! 

Walking through the streets of the Western District - Wing Lok Street, Des Voux Road Ko Shing Street  and Hollywood Road - is interesting, but as it’s Sunday, fewer shops are open and the area’s much quieter than it would be at other times. Still, there are wonderful photo opportunities around d every corner - shops that are open selling strange, unfamiliar goods, couples drinking coffee together, dog walking (dogs are seen as status symbols as most apartments are so cramped it’s impossible to keep them), buildings, street art etc. I’ve decided to just use my 50mm lens today - I rarely do this, preferring the flexibility of my 17mm - 70mm for example. And I’ve also decided to keep to mono (well I’ve shot in colour, but edited to mono) - it’s an interesting experiment! 

For me the highlight is a visit to yet another Man Mo Temple - one of the oldest on the island. The name of both this and yesterday’s temple derives from the main gods worshipped there - the God of Literature (Man) and the God of War (Mo). As a city temple, it’s even busier than the one in Tai Po, and the air is so full of incense that it’s almost difficult to breathe. 

We ride the ‘longest outdoor escalator’ - essentially several uphill moving pavements - before a brief unscheduled visit to the Hong Kong Correctional Services Museum. Essentially this is a ‘comfort stop’, but it seems a very interesting building well worth a visit. Sadly there’s no time for this today as we have to get back to the ship; we sail for Shanghai at 2.00 pm. So it’s back to the Star Ferry terminal on Hong Kong Island to cross to Kowloon and the short walk back to our ship. 

The weather here has been a very pleasant surprise. We left Vigan two days ago where heat and humidity made things uncomfortable at times, but the realisation that we may hardly see the sun again as we had north has come as a bit of a shock. But we’ve had two days of warm sunshine with low humidity and it’s been very pleasant- so nice that we’re able to have a deck part as we sail away from port, watching the Hong Kong skyline as it slips out of view and we head into the South China Sea for our voyage to mainland China. 

Going back to my mono escapade today I’m posting another temple shot as my main. G finds the mask distracting, but I love her eyes and it is a record of reality. Then there are o couple of other temple shots, a poster I couldn’t resist, and a rare example of street art. There are then four sets of collages - a photo essay rather than a blip entry!