photographic highlights 2024–25

I’ll be heading back to the UK for the summer in a couple of days, and as usual, I’ve compiled a collection of what I consider to be the most interesting photos that I’ve taken during the past seven months in Hong Kong. Also as usual, the collection does not include any photos used to illustrate other posts on this blog.

Many years ago, I was wandering around Luen Wo Hui, the area of Fanling nearest to the village where we live, when I suddenly felt hungry. And I fancied a plate of one of my favourite Chinese food dishes, Singapore noodles. I picked a typical cafe at random and went in. Nowadays, whenever I fancy a plate of Singapore noodles, I still go to the same cafe, and this is a photo of the last plate I ate there:

Several years ago, I went into a Chinese takeaway in Penrith, not to buy anything—I never eat so-called Chinese food in the UK—but I was accompanying a friend who didn’t know any better. While he was placing his order, I browsed the menu on the wall, and my attention was drawn to ‘Singapore noodles’. So I asked the Chinese man behind the counter what kind of noodles they used in their Singapore noodles.

“What do you mean? Noodles!” he replied.

My guess is that he didn’t know that there are four types of noodle in Cantonese cuisine, and the correct answer should have been mai fan (rice noodles). The noodles in chow mein are made with wheat flour.

On one of our rare visits to Hong Kong Island, we somehow ended up in Wanchai (we were supposed to be going up the Peak). And I couldn’t miss seeing an extensive mural featuring lotus flowers. This is one of several photos I took:

On the same visit to Hong Kong side, we also went into Pacific Place, an upmarket shopping mall in Central, and I couldn’t resist taking a photo of the men’s toilet:

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a luxurious toilet anywhere else.

Sunset on the Ng Tung River (our local river):

A few years ago, I posted a collection of photos of elaborate gates leading to otherwise nondescript houses under the title The Gates of Delirium. This gate certainly belongs in that collection:

The next photo shows a shop in Green Code Plaza, a shopping mall in Luen Wo Hui:

The extraordinary thing about this display is that the shop only sells knitting materials, not dolls.

A sunset picture that I took from our roof:

…and another sunset picture looking down our local river:

And a telephoto that I took from our roof to show the progress that has been made in the Fanling North New Development Area (NDA):

I can no longer take photos like this, because the owner of the roof directly in front of the camera has built a structure that completely blocks our view to the west.

I came across this dragon in the forecourt of Belair Monte, a housing estate in Luen Wo Hui, during Chinese New Year:

I took several photos of a particular morning glory when walking past the construction site down our local river, but this one shows the most flowers:

I don’t often come across firecracker vines, which flower in January, that I haven’t seen before, but I found this one in Ko Po North, a sprawling village east of Fanling:

There is only one location in my neighbourhood where I can see pigeons, the gardens in front of Union Plaza, yet another housing estate in Luen Wo Hui. However, pigeons are almost always mob-handed here:

I can’t remember where I took this photo of a monitor lizard on he edge of a footpath. Notice how long its tail is:

Sometimes when we cycle ‘down south’ to Shatin, we stop for a rest in places that look like pleasant spots to sit for a while. We stopped once at what I would describe as a balcony that projects out over the Shing Mun River, directly opposite the Heritage Museum. I couldn’t help but notice this granite plaque, with its engraved plant motif, set into the floor of the balcony:

A few years ago, I posted a description of an outlandish garden at the start of the path across the Swamp under the title The Garden of Earthly Delights (Hieronymus Bosch would have approved). There is an equally bizarre entrance to a garden on the opposite side of the footpath that I’ve only recently got around to photographing:

My favourite bike ride, ‘the final frontier’ (so named because it passes through an area that was designated a part of the frontier closed area until 2016), passes a temple near Ping Che. On a recent ride, we noticed that there appeared to be some kind of festival in progress, so naturally we stopped to take a few photos. I particularly liked this statue:

Be sure to click on the photo to see the intricate detail.

The only way to cross Sha Tau Kok Road, the main road east out of Fanling, between that road’s junctions with Ma Sik Road and Fan Leng Lau Road, is via one of two subways. I’ve photographed graffiti on the walls of the more easterly subway before, but it was washed off long ago (the walls of the subway are tiled). I was therefore surprised to see this quite impressive tag recently:

I don’t expect it to still be here when we come back to Hong Kong in the autumn.

Nowadays, Paula and I go regularly to Queen’s Hill Public Housing Estate for breakfast. In addition to seven 40-storey residential blocks, there are two secondary schools here, and after breakfast we always have a walk around the public areas of the estate, which is why we happened to notice that one of the schools was conducting a fire drill:

Back in Green Code Plaza, I took the following photo of the central atrium from the mezzanine floor. The bright light source is an amusement arcade that calls itself CHECK POINT, and I was struck by the fact that the word ‘CHECK’ reads correctly even though it’s a mirror image:

Two days ago, we were riding along the cycle track through Taipo Waterfront Park when I spotted what looked like an interesting mural. Naturally, I stopped to take a few photos; this one is of the full mural, which appears to be anti-drug propaganda:

And that’s the highlights of my most recent sojourn in Hong Kong.

an interesting diversion

Paula and I don’t often cycle out to Plover Cove, east of Taipo, even though there is a cycle track all the way there, mainly because it’s necessary to return the way you’ve just come. In fact, it is possible to continue, but the cycle track ends at Plover Cove, and it’s a legal requirement that cyclists get off and push their bikes up the initial hill. And the continuation road (Bride’s Pool Road) carries quite a lot of traffic, so it’s really only a practical option on Sundays and public holidays. However, on a ride out to Plover Cove last autumn, I noticed a new cycle track that branched off the one we were on, and I thought it might be worth investigating to see whether there was anything interesting to see.

And there certainly is. What follows is an account of a ride out to Plover Cove back in March, which included a detour along this unknown cycle track to see what we might discover. This is a map of the area of interest:

The cycle track to Plover Cove follows Ting Kok Road, the main road in the northwest corner of the map. The extensive grey area covering much of the peninsula that extends southeast from the main road is an upmarket low-rise housing estate known as The Beverly Hills.

The cycle track runs alongside the principal road but comes to an end just before the road crosses a causeway to an island. We continued along the road until it finally came to an end just before reaching the Luen Yick Fishermen’s Village:

Our initial attempt to continue was unsuccessful, but then we spotted a road leading off to the side:

And boy were we surprised! Wow! It leads to a UNESCO World Heritage site. So that’s the way we went. This is a view down this road:

The first thing I noticed at the end of this road was a mural:

Although the above photo shows a view of the mural from the left, I photographed the rest of it working from right to left:

Although the artwork here is pretty crude, the last three photos appear to show a history of the area.

And this is a view overlooking the typhoon shelter, taken from approximately the same position:

You can see The Beverly Hills in the distance.

We continued for a short distance, and I took this photo to show an access point for the local fishermen to the typhoon shelter:

I’d noticed the footpaths marked on the map and had assumed that we would be able to cycle along them, as we do on countless other country footpaths, but I was soon disabused of this notion:

There was a sign on a wall on the left that proclaimed ‘Ma Shi Chau Special Area 1.5km’.

So we turned back and continued our ride out to Plover Cove, but I wanted to come back on foot to take a closer look at this ‘special area’ (see below).

As we rode along, I suddenly became aware of an intense redness ahead (see below), but we continued without stopping.

Plover Cove is an example of the ingenuity of the then British administration in attempting to resolve Hong Kong’s chronic water supply problems by damming the cove. And we always ride along the crest of the dam (about 3km), even though it’s a dead end, because there is no traffic, which makes for quite a serene experience. This is a view of the dam and the reservoir from the far end:

The mountain in the distance is Pat Sin Leng (‘Eight Summits Ridge’). There are many angles from which it is almost impossible to count the eight summits, but you can certainly see the full quota from this vantage point.

On the way back, I meant to take a photo of the sign at the top of the hill leading down from the crest of the dam to street level. It proclaims that cyclists must dismount and push their bikes down the hill. There are places in Tai Mei Tuk, the village at the end of the cycle track, where you can rent a bike for the day, and renting bikes is a popular activity at weekends. And I’ve heard reports of these ‘weekend wobblers’ being injured trying to ride their rented bikes down this hill. However, we’re not that incompetent, so we always ignore the sign.

On the way back, I made a point of stopping to take some photos of the ‘intense redness’ that I referred to above:

These are cotton trees, which flower before the leaves appear and are my favourite trees in Hong Kong.

I also took another photo from this location of Pat Sin Leng:

And that was our latest ride to Plover Cove. However, we wanted to see the UNESCO site, and by checking online I found that there is a bus service from Taipo Market station to the fishermen’s village. So we took this bus a couple of weeks ago, and what follows is an account of our ultimately unsuccessful attempt to see what all the fuss was about.

The initial flight of steps wasn’t a problem, but there was far worse to come:

Although I didn’t count any other steps, there are ninety-nine in this flight. I would estimate that the total number of steps we had to climb on this walk numbered in the high hundreds!

We encountered scores of graves on each side of the path as we proceeded, as you can see in this photo:

Note too the meticulous paving of the path, which reminded me of the roads built in the Andes by the Inca.

And this photo shows the Plover Cove Dam to the north:

Ma Shi Chau is linked to the island we’d just traversed by a narrow tombolo less than 5 metres wide that is tricky to negotiate. This is a view looking back along the shoreline:

When we finally reached Ma Shi Chau, there was a sign with an accompanying map that it was a two-hour round trip to the end of the island, which appeared to be the area of interest. However, after about 15 minutes of struggling with a tedious, seemingly nonexistent path, we decided to give up and turn back.

And this is the longest flight of steps on the return journey:

Another view of a section of path:

When we finally reached the fishermen’s village, I spotted these artworks alongside another access point to the typhoon shelter:

And that was our ultimately unsuccessful attempt to visit the so-called ‘geopark’. We don’t plan to try again, partly because I don’t think the geology here is likely to be particularly interesting to me. I think that the orange lump you can see in the first photo above is from the geopark. The colour is certainly unusual, but as a sedimentary rock it holds little interest to me despite my background as a geologist.

inspiring

The weather forecast wasn’t inspiring yesterday. The chance of rain, according to the Hong Kong Observatory website, was ‘medium’, which pretty much guarantees rain at some point. Paula said that she didn’t want to do any walks in our neighbourhood—we’ve exhausted all the possibilities here—and she suggested that we travel into town and climb Victoria Peak (‘the Peak’) from Central, which is effectively from sea level. Accordingly, we walked into Luen Wo Hui to have breakfast at the Fairwood branch there, after which we could take a minibus to Fanling station and thence a train to Central.

However, just as we were finishing our breakfast, it started to rain. Heavily.

“Change of plan,” said Paula. “Let’s take a bus to Tsing Yi.”

Tsing Yi is an island northwest of Kowloon. It used to be an industrial centre, but nowadays it’s an important residential area with a forest of low-end, high-rise apartment blocks. And we wouldn’t even get wet going to the bus station, which is located directly underneath the Regentville housing estate (Fairwood is located in the shopping mall that forms the bottom two storeys of this estate).

Naturally, I concurred, especially as we would have a grandstand view of everywhere we passed through en route, unlike travelling by train, from which you can see almost nothing. I was actually wondering about the route the bus would take, and to my delight it took a round-the-houses route through the eastern part of Fanling and Sheung Shui before hitting the expressway. I was delighted because although I’m completely familiar with all of Fanling east of the main railway (the East Rail line), I’ve rarely ventured west of the railway, mainly because there doesn’t appear to be much to see, apart from Fung Ying Seen Koon, a Taoist monastery that I have visited; Kun Chung Temple, which I’ve also visited; and North District Hospital, where I’ve been a patient on more than one occasion.

I’d been wondering which route the bus would take, but I was taken aback when the bus hit the expressway, heading north! I shouldn’t have been surprised though, because shortly after passing through Sheung Shui, the expressway bends westwards and is thus the most direct route to Tsing Yi.

Another surprise as the bus cruised westwards along the expressway: the skies were slowly clearing, and it began to look as though we’d seen the last of the rain. So we eventually arrived at Tsing Yi station, but there didn’t appear to be much of interest in the immediate vicinity.

“Let’s take the train to Disneyland,” suggested Paula.

“I’m not going to Disneyland!” was my peremptory reply.

However, Paula didn’t have an actual visit to Disneyland in mind either. Apparently, there is a scenic park close to Disneyland that we could walk around (Paula had been before). So that’s what we did. Unfortunately, Paula couldn’t remember the exact location of the park, and we ended up walking all the way around the outside of Disneyland. This unplanned diversion, along roads named Magic Road and Fantasy Road, took us past the entrances to several hotels, and I couldn’t help but wonder why anyone would want to stay here. Yes, the location is convenient for visiting Disneyland, but it’s far from ideal if you want to go to almost anywhere else in Hong Kong. Anyway, we eventually reached the park, and almost immediately I noticed that it contained quite a large lake:

I was amused to discover that this is named Inspiration Lake!

The plan was to walk around the lake in a clockwise direction, and as we did so we encountered very few people. I took photos of the lake at various points along our walk.

I couldn’t help but notice the large number of loose boulders along the shoreline, which led me to conjecture that this is an artificial lake.

This photo was taken looking back the way we’d just come. It shows just how well the path that we followed is paved:

The next photo provides more evidence of the artificiality of the lake:

What is shown here is not a natural feature.

We stopped briefly at some convenient benches to enjoy the view:

The lake contains an island, which you can see in the previous two photos, although it was not until we reached this point that I realized that there was an island here:

Continuing on:

What appears to be some kind of jetty in the next picture is actually the second such structure on the edge of the lake:

Although we didn’t actually stop here, I couldn’t resist taking a photo of this rather quaint gazebo:

And this is the last photo I took in the park:

I just liked the tree.

Almost immediately after we left the park, we needed to cross a road, but there was a convenient pedestrian underpass:

…and this is a view of the exit from that underpass:

We still had some distance to walk, but we eventually reached Disneyland station. While we were waiting for the next train, I couldn’t resist taking a photo of the platform:

I just liked the ironwork, which makes this station unlike any other on the MTR network.

When we boarded the train to Disneyland, which is on a branch line with no other stations, I couldn’t help but notice the Mickey Mouse windows and the upholstered seating, which is not like the hard stainless steel seats on other MTR trains. There were too many people in the train on the outward journey, but I took this photo as we waited to depart on our way back to the real world:

I suspect that Disney had a say in the design of the trains here. They may even have paid for them outright.

We did consider taking an alternative route back to Fanling, but in the end we opted to take the same bus. So did we find the day inspiring? Not really, but we did enjoy it.