latest news from ghost alley #3

I arrived back in Hong Kong a week ago, and one of the first places I wanted to check out was ghost alley. I did so on Saturday, and I was not disappointed. Unfortunately, some of the earlier artwork here has faded badly or even disappeared completely—the cat and mouse that I included in More from Ghost Alley is a particularly sad casualty.

The signs proclaiming this location to be ‘Ping Che Mural Village’ are still there, and there is one new example:

Regular readers will know that I have a low opinion of Google Maps. In this case, the location is marked as ‘Ping Yeung Mural Village’ on Google. I’ve reported the error, but despite overwhelming photographic evidence to the contrary, nothing has been done (Ping Yeung is the nearest village to this location, but Ping Che is a general name for the entire area).

I featured an installation of rotating drinks cans in More from Ghost Alley, and I’m not sure whether the one that I noted then is the same as the one I photographed on Saturday. The latter appears to be much larger:

It was quite breezy on Saturday, and all of these cans were spinning merrily away as I passed.

There are no new murals such as those that I featured in Latest News from Ghost Alley and Latest News from Ghost Alley #2, but there is a picnic table that I believe was there previously but is now completely covered with intricate designs:

At first glance, it would seem that it is all the work of a single artist, but there are several names written on the edges of the table, and I think that it is reasonable to assume that these are the names of individual artists who have contributed to the overall design. This is a closer look at the artwork on the nearer of the two seats:

All the remaining photos were taken from the other side of the table. First, the seat:

Perhaps because there is more space for the artist(s), the tabletop is the most impressive part of this installation:

The other new creation here is a sculpture:

This may seem like a bizarre juxtaposition, but we used to see cattle egrets piggybacking on Buffalo Bill regularly. The cow here is a zebu, the only breed I’ve ever seen in Hong Kong, although it isn’t an entirely accurate representation. Of course, this doesn’t matter in the slightest. The only important point here is that someone is being creative!

There are three ways into this location. If I assign numbers to these paths, whenever we were in the area, we would enter by path #1 and leave by path #2, although I discovered this location via path #3. The only reason for leaving via #3 is to visit Wun Chuen Sin Koon, a Taoist monastery, but if you do decide to exit this way, there are some things to see:

All you can see here is coloured circles, but the section of path where these occur is quite extensive. And this is a slightly more detailed look at something just off the path at the location from where the previous photo was taken.

This has been the latest update from ghost alley, but I pass this way regularly, and I have little doubt that this will not be my last report from this location.