Today we started out on Hollywood Rd on Hong Kong Island where all the antique shops are, stopped by the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch and then went to International Commerce Center which has opened its obsevarion deck just a few weeks ago.
Pictures – Man Mo temple on Hollywood Rd burns a lotof incense (spiral coils)! The International Commerce Center comes in at No 4 according to a chart on the observation deck. Notably Chicago boasts two skyscrapers in the top 10 : Willis Tower (Sears Tower’s new name) and Trump’s Tower. (Message to Mr Trump : stick to real estate and stay out of politics). The blue floor with a model of Hong Kong is at one’s feet when stepping out of the elevator on the 100th floor. The tower is in Kowloon, so that’s Hong Kong Island across Victoria Harbor. The observation deck has little mascots (to make it interesting for young visitors?) The picture shows a little of the side, and that’s me in the ‘take a photo’ cube.
We noticed that there’s a number of floors above the observation deck .. that is actually a Ritz-Carlton Hotel (!) occupying floors 102 through 118. It has the world’s highest swimming pool and bar within a building. The 30,000 sqf Presidential Suite which costs 100 000 HKD per night ($US 12,500) is on floor 117.
These pictures are from my outing to Shenzhen yesterday. It was foggy and drizzling, so not the best day to go skyscaper hunting in the city.
From the top down –
Entrance to the Grand Theatre metro station (this is by the mix-C shopping mall) where the cab driver from Dameisha dropped me off / .. and there it is, the King Key Finance Center disappearing into the fog. Not sure of the name of the building in front of it / This is an administrative building of some sort close by / The Shung Hing Square tower (tallest in Shenzhen but about to be overtaken by the King Key Finance Center) / tree with orange spring blossoms at the base of the Shung Hing Square tower/ this is a dorm building for University of Shenzhen students / in the background with the China Southern Power Grid building in the front / the pink step building might belong to Huatai United Securities (that’s what the billboard on it says)
The next few pictures are from inside the mix-C shopping mall .. a tea seller / a hovercraft demonstrated in Toys-R-Us / a 3D puzzle for the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai / Wonderwoman and Medusa (?) at the MAC cosmetics store .. Pow! take that!
Now outside again .. the World Finance Center is also close by the other two towers the first picture of the base and the next from farther away and finally an Art Deco-y apartment building nearby (with the tree in front of it sprouting little green leaves).
It was a long Monday at work – Mondays always seem long! but at least I can post these pictures from yesterday’s visit to the Outside China Town (OCT) theme park. Disneyland or Six Flags it is not – but there is a spectacular and steep aerial tramway up the mountainside to provide panoramic views of Dameisha, the beach and the bay down below.
The parking lot for OCT theme park. We see the tower with the wrap-around screen every night from the Yanba Expressway when we came in from work with the shuttle bus.The entrance: a nod to the Year of the Tiger, and the first of five or six escalators that takes one up the mountainside.A misty pond on the way up to the space shuttle display on one of the levels.Trinkets and refreshments are for sale everywhere, of course.Here’s the Starbucks, with a food vendor in the foreground. If the Starbucks was a little easier to get to, and not inside OCT, I would have visited it every day.The water spray is kicked up by a jet ski, and we did not stay long enough to see what other entertainment was offered in this show.1Here’s the aerial tramway, taking us to the top of the mountain ridge. Those pylons are really tall! That’s Dameisha beach on the right and Mirs Bay in the distance.The arrival point at the top of the tramway. The little tramway cars take only 6 people, at most.Posing for the obligatory photograph at the overlook. This is looking more or less west, with the coastline continuing on towards Shenzhen and Hong Kong.Here’s the skywalk with its glass floor. Yikes. With these things, one has to trust that the civil engineers had double checked their design calculations, and that the builders had followed all the specifications without cutting corners.Looking down at a new ride that is under construction, on the edge of the cliff. I’m too old for these kinds of heart-stopping experiences, so it’s a no for me, thank you very much.Another Chinese only menu to decipher. The pictures are super helpful for the helpless (us), of course. The green section has the cold drinks (such as snow top coffee and iced tea) and hot drinks (black tea, green tea, milk tea, classic coffee).Here is the view from the top, with some main areas and buildings of interest. Dameisha is really ‘big’ Meisha (‘da’ is big) and Xiaomeisha is ‘little’ Meisha (‘xiao’ means small or little).
They do celebrate Valentine’s Day in China, and this year it coincides with the Chinese New Year’s Day – very rare since the new year’s day is late on the calendar this year.
It turned out that my fears of masses of people trying to get into Hong Kong on Friday through the Shenzhen-Hong Kong border was unfounded; I sailed through with no trouble at all. I stayed at a Marriott Courtyard Hotel on Hong Kong Island, very reasonably priced at US$100 per night, a tall 30 story structure with only 6 rooms on every floor (picture below is from my hotel room). The room was very cozy, the bed had six perfectly firm pillows, the glass shower stall a large oversized ‘rain’ showerhead .. and the food in the restaurant was superb.
I was so tired on Friday night, and sat there enjoying a crisp Asahi beer and fried halibut with jasmine rice and Thai asparagus. Saturday I crisscrossed the city on several missions, to the bookstore, to the jewelry store, to the toy store, and they were all successful. I also learned that the New Year’s parade (another parade other than the January one) and fireworks was only going to be tonight, so I missed that. But I did go to the New Year’s Fair in Victoria Park; I will post more pictures later this week.
Here’s the outside of the Luohu border crossing that separates mainland China from the Hong Kong special territory. There is an MTR station on the other side called Lo Wu on the East Rail Line that runs all the way into Hong Kong city.Catching my reflection on a stainless steel-plated pillar on one of the plazas outside the International Finance Center mall, an upscale shopping mall on the waterfront of Hong Kong’s Central District.These ‘happy happy’ guys are from the foyer of the International Finance Center mall, an upscale shopping mall on the waterfront of Hong Kong Island’s Central District.A family of tigers, heralding the start of the Year of the Tiger, inside the fancy Landmark shopping mall on Queens Road in Central District on Hong Kong Island. This mall is very upscale and designer oriented, all Gucci and Louis Vuitton and all that.Lots of people on Saturday night, and lots of food vendors in the Tsim Sha Tsui district in Kowloon, Hong Kong.Ice cream at Mister Softee in the Tsim Sha Tsui district in Kowloon, Hong Kong.Hole-in-the-wall stores in Tsim Tsa Tsui that are not on the street level can be found on other levels in the tall buildings. Look for the sign for the South African ‘Van Der Merwe’ camera store on the left !A forest of tall apartment towers from a high floor in the Marriott Courtyard on Connaught Rd West in, Sai Ying Pun on Hong Kong Island.
I took the bus to downtown to go pick up my passport with the new visa in, at the office. I stayed there for a bit to catch up on my e-mails as well.
Waiting for the No 10 bus on 15th Avenue. The Newcastle Brown Ale beer truck must have replenished the supplies of the bars and restaurants close by : ).The view of downtown from my desk in the offices on 5th Avenue, towards Elliott Bay in Puget Sound. (Ignore the mosquito in the window! Ha!). There’s Macy’s department store, and to its right the lower triangular one is Westlake Center. Look for the monorail train at the bottom, picking up passengers for the short run to the Space Needle.
More pictures while roaming around on the streets of Hong Kong.
The Center is a 73-story skyscraper located on Queen’s Road Central halfway between the MTR Island Line’s Sheung Wan and Central stations, at height of 350m (1,150 ft). It is the city’s 5th tallest building.Scene at the International Finance Center, Bank of China building with the diagonal stripes in the background was once the tallest outside New York and Chicago, but no more.Lots of night buses and trolleys to take restaurant and store workers home, about 10pm.Billboard with website promoting collaboration between Hong Kong and Shenzhen’s for a combined infrastructure as twin cities across the HK-China ‘border’ (eat your bokchoy! it’s good for you : )Overhead reflection walking in Hong Kong Island’s fancy shopping district.Don’t spit in the subway! says the sign .. which must be working, because I saw very few people spit.I love the dragon-turtle on the HKD 50 (about 8 HKD to the US Dollar).
On the ‘Avenue of the Stars’ in Kowloon on mainland Hong Kong. My colleague Samuel and I are about to take the Star ferry to cross Victoria harbor to Hong Kong Island, with its skyline behind me.‘Impossible is nothing’, says the billboard from Adidas on Hennessey Road in Causeway Bay. The black bus below is painted in a Swiss watch maker Rado (founded 1917) ad.Billboards in Mong Kok residential district in Hong Kong. Mong Kok is a buzzing maze of narrow streets, known for its shops. Patrick Chan is a celebrity tutor in Hong Kong. (No relation to movie superstar Jackie Chan, nor to Canadian figure skater Patrick Chan).Budweiser beer truck on Sai Yeung Choi St in Mong Kok residential district.A mythical creature, possibly the Lion of Saint Mark, in an upscale store window on Hong Kong Island. It looks like it is made from the colored glass called lazurite glass. Shantung Street in Mong Kok, with signs everywhere! (If you are driving, do not miss the NO ENTRY signs). Many stores are only just opening, at 10.30am! .. but I’m told they are open until very late at night.Eye-catching beauty in a shop window. She is promoting Neway entertainment lounges, a leader in the karaoke industry in Hong Kong. My colleague Samuel on the southern shore of Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon on the promenade by Victoria harbor. The Clock Tower behind him is a landmark building in Hong Kong. It is all that remains of the original site of the former Kowloon Station on the Kowloon-Canton Railway.Catching the red line on the Hong Kong’s world class subway system called MTR (Mass Transit Railway) to Hong Kong Island. The subway tunnel goes under Victoria Harbor to move passengers between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island.
