Another view of the UFO convention center.
Click to make it biiig.
Honkers: June 2004 Archives
No, really, I mean it.
The buliding in the front is the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank Building (yes, HSBC stands for Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation), Hong Kong’s first great modern skyscraper; rising behind it is IFC 2, an 88-story tower that, with those white prongs at the top, kinda looks like a sandworm from the planet Arrakis. OK, so maybe it’s just me.
Not sure what it says (anyone?) but, judging by the surrounding signage, it probably has something to do with getting your hair cut at a Japanese hair salon.
Or then again, maybe not.
A close-up of the Bank of China building.
This was I.M. Pei’s answer to Norman Foster’s HSBC building.
He’s suppose to symbolize man’s increasing dependence on technology.
Or something.
Apparently the People’s Bookstore wasn’t drawing enough business. Note the relative sizes and positions of the two signs.
Compare with the Mao picture from a few days ago.
Scenes from a market:
If memory serves, the ones one the faaaar right are Whybark’s famous 1,000-year-old eggs.
Did you know that they’re building Hong Kong Disneyland, due to open sometime in 2005 (or maybe 2006)?
Dunno if this shirt will be on sale there, though.
The shirt belongs to some random fella who just happened to get in the way at the right time.
Sorry about the focus again.
The Jardine’s Crescent street market. There’s about another 250 yards of street stalls and the like beyond this point.
Well, that’s what the sign says.
It should be noted that what with bird flu and swine flu and SARS, the matter of slaughterhouses shouldn’t be played only for laughs any more. But doesn’t that pork look lovely?
This is a picture of the base of the former Prince of Wales building. Back when Hong Kong was still a British colony (i.e. prior to 1997), the Prince of Wales building was HQ for the token British military presence in Hong Kong. Today, it’s the HQ for the token People’s Liberation Army presence in Hong Kong.
It used to have “The Prince of Wales Building” in big raised metal lettering on the side of the building. Last time I was in Hong Kong, the lettering had been removed (naturally), and the building had been given a fresh coat of paint. Unfortunately, the paint used was not sufficient, and the words “The Prince of Wales Building” were still clearly visible. As you can see, they came up with another solution for that problem.
(Not that I actually know what it says—going by the first three characters, which is pretty much all I can recognize, it probably says “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Forces Headquarters”)
Went to Macau on Sunday. Took lots of pictures.
Didn’t gamble; the HK$200 minimum (US$24, roughly) at the blackjack tables made me realize that I really don’t know how to count cards…
Macau comes by its southern European charm naturally; the Portuguese had a presence on the islands for nearly 500 years, until 1999, when it was officially handed over to the PRC.
I found the street sign whilst wandering through the back alleys of the historic district. Unfortunately, most of Macau (which is surprisingly small and quite walkable) doesn’t look like this.
The most famous landmark in Macau is the ruins of Sao Paulo, the remains of a 16th-century church that burnt down* during a typhoon** about 150 years ago. The ruins consist primarly of the church’s facade.
As you can see, Saint Francis has gone to the birds.
*Burnt down or burned down? Discuss.
Since I don’t have the time to write a longer entry, here are two more images of the ruins of St. Paul’s:
And for those who are curious, here are some more basic facts and figures about Macau (or, your tax dollars at work).
Two towers in Macau.
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I gotta say that the restaurant that we ate at at the top of the second tower was far better than the usual tourist slop that they normally serve at these sorts of places.
As a side note, they have “adventure walks” that take paying customers outside the tower building and around the very edge of that outer catwalk, some 70-odd stories up.
Last two from Macau:
We will return to your regularly scheduled Hong Kong pictures tomorrow.
For the record, I’ve never seen anyone in a bikini in Lan Kwai Fong.
So can drunken sailors sue for false advertising?
Boats jockeying for position outside of Queen’s Pier during a public holiday.
In the background is The Building of the Hong Kong Detachment of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. In Macau, the troops of the local PLA garrison are allowed to mingle freely with the Macanese; while I didn’t notice any during my day there, at least one guidebook suggests that they are a frequent and common sight among the streets in the former Portuguese colony. In Hong Kong, however, PLA troops are strictly confined to the grounds of the garrison; they are completely cut off—isolated—from the local populace.
Two other, perhaps unrelated, facts to consider:
- The PLA troops that rolled into Tiananmen Square in June of 1989 were not Beijing-based, local garrisons; they were troops that had specifically been recalled from the hinterland and who had no local connections or allegiences.
- Macau is thought to be politically stable and unlikely to rock the boat, unlike Hong Kong, which is considered by the mainland to be a hotbed of seditious democrats.
If you’ll excuse me, I have to go adjust my tinfoil beanie.
Making up for yesterday:
And in other news, I’m working silly hours, six (sometimes seven) days a week, and yes, it’s really hot and humid out, but I can’t say that I can tell, since I’m inside all the time…
On the other side of the cinderblock wall is the inside of a rather glitzy shopping mall.
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What you don’t see is the giant cruise ship about 15 feet behind me.
