12 April 2019
Grimey goodness
Wandering the markets of Mong Kok in search of Wonton noodle soup
Hooray its not raining. I bet it will be tomorrow morning.
Tonight I headed just up the street and walked laps of Mong Kok gawking at the grimey goodness. Hong Kong is well worn. You can find new things, but generally they will have parts not finished, falling down, inhabited by homeless people, covered in durian skin or being used as a storage mall for bamboo construction poles.
One thing I noticed this evening was gun shops, lots of them. They are not real guns, I think they might be air powered machine guns, I dont know. But they are real sized very real looking machine guns. I think there are a lot more of these stores than previously. All of them had a giant no photo sign, an angry looking guy standing out the front with a trench coat concealing a real gun, and numerous security cameras, so I took no photo.
The streets were not closed off tonight, I suspect that must be a weekend thing only, but people walked on the road anyway, in amongst double decker buses, which were not the issue, but taxi drivers will go 80km an hour down a street full of people. I stood waiting with my camera poised ready to capture bodies flying through the air, but it never happened. The annoying thing is the slow walking, the slowest walking ever, getting 100 metres takes the same amount of time it would normally take me to go a km. Also, a lot of Hong Kongers are very large, this was reinforced to me when I went under the street via a subway, and saw a line for the lift, instead of taking the 28 steps. A line of young people in their 20's, reading their phone, taking their stomachs for a walk to put more things in their stomachs. Concerning.
Here is a market. The towering apartments make it more interesting. I really dont mind the smell of durian, some people cant stand it. Maybe I just have little or no sense of smell.
Whenever a place is not occupied in Hong Kong, this occurs. Worse than that, later in the evening I saw a bank that had closed for the night and pulled the roller shutters down over their glass doors, and people were busy taping signs to the door minutes after closing. Every morning when they open up they have to cut through the tape and paper to get into their bank.
Another market, I like the markets, they make for good photos.
The obligatory how the hell do they climb all over bamboo and not die photo. This one also features giant tarps, flapping around in the breeze.
I stopped to take in a senior citizens soccer game played on wet concrete under lights. Awesome.
Egg tarts, they are not just egg tarts anymore, now they are a glasses shop.
In one of the nice new malls, there seems to be a mens shed setup, sponsored by Nike. In Australia mens shed is where lonely old men go to do manly things and wait for the end.
Laneways between the buildings are where it all happens, generally chefs smoking.
I hear they are nice on the inside!
Now for 3 similar shots from an overpass. Here is shot number one, which involves a market. I have seen lots of photos from this spot taken by other people with longer lenses. Here is mine with a wide lense.
Shot 2 of 3, with a 7-eleven sign.
And shot 3 of 3 with many double decker buses. They are noisy and expel a gaseous blast of super heated air.
I was turned away from 2 places due to being along, so I headed to a nanna place and had the Hong Kong specialty of won ton noodle soup. The picture looked better than what I got, it showed a heap of bok choy and I got none. Perhaps I should not complain as it was less than $5. Also, won ton noodle soup is really just MSG water to which I add copious amounts of chilli and pepper until its chock full of lip burning flavour.