Hiking from Nathan Road up Beacon Hill over Lion Rock and back again
It was supposed to be pouring with rain all day. I got up and peered out the window, it looked like any other rainy day. I went outside thinking I would wander the streets aimlessly all day trying not to get wet, just like yesterday, except it wasnt raining.
I was not yet convinced, so I wandered up Nathan road, thinking it would rain any second now. It didnt.
I saw a hill / mountain, and thought I would head towards it, surely just pondering going up a mountain would cause an immediate severe flood, the direction I choose to walk is clearly the determining factor for weather. Still no rain. Hmmm.
Because I was convinced it would rain all day, I had set off without my running pack thing that I keep water in and now forms a structural part of my camera setup. Despite this, I was determined, I thought to myself, I will just drink 2 litres of water now and not carry any with me. Well that didnt go to plan either, the road I took up to the start of a hiking trail was all guarded compounds of fancy apartments I could not access, oh well, no water it is then!
Finding the real trail first required finding any kind of a trail up the side of a cliff, thankfully a little old guy lead the way, and we hauled ourselves up some ropes before joining the main Maclehose trail. If you have ever done any hiking at all in Hong Kong you will know the Maclehose trail. I checked some of the maps, and if it did decide to rain, there were numerous options back down again, so I had selected the best place to come in case I needed to flee. But it never rained. This allowed me to ascend and descend both Canyon Hill and Lion Rock. It was great. I sweated profusely (btw, sweated isnt a word!) despite having no water since waking up. Sitting here typing this now my legs are aching more than usual because of that. Oh well.
There were other people on the trail, nearly all of them Filipino house maids on their day off. Now ask yourself, why is it Philippines and Filipino. Why not Philippino?
As usual, the photos of Hong Kong from mountains are badly impacted by mist / fog / smog, you have been warned.
Here is Nathan road out the front of my hotel. Note the surprising lack of rain.
I was looking for a cafe open at 7:30am on a Sunday. No luck. KFC was open for their weird Asian breakfast but I just could not bring myself to do it.
My route took me up a freeway past a swimming pool.
Soon I joined a hiking trail, still no rain, I skipped gleefully.
That is a construction site being built into the side of a hill.
Before very long at all I got enough height to start appreciating the excellent, but hazey view.
More view.
The main trail was very developed, even if it did start to rain I would have no problem today.
Beacon hill. This is probably the beacon they speak of. It looks abandoned, as you shall see I suspect it was for the old airport.
Near the centre of the picture you can see the old Kai Tak airport runway. I am standing almost on the famous checkerboard, where huge jets used to perform a sharp turn in front of the mountain and try not to hit any buildings as they descended between them.
Off in the distance, lion rock, my main goal for today.
Half way up the rock part of lion rock looking back at beacon hill. The Beacon has since vanished in the fog.
I stood in this exact spot in severe fog many years ago. Now I am here again.
There really are steep cliffs to fall off if that is your thing.
These Filipino girls are trying their best to die posing for photos.
I stayed a long way from the edge, meanwhile behind me they were leaping into the air on rocks near the edge.
Past lion rock there is another peak to go over, I dont know what its called, but the signs all point to Sha Tin Pass.
More Filipinos perched on the edge. I am starting to understand why they need the signs everywhere telling people not to go on the official hiking trail.
I chose to access beyond this point. It seemed no more likely to kill you than the previous points.
That there is my path down, along the ridge. Still no rain, no idea how this has occurred but I was very glad I went for a waterless hike.
I was very powerful today.
About halfway down, by this point the path became a solid marble stair case.
Last photo, a temple! This one features razor wire, swastikas, and a huge power pole thingy. Soon after this, it started raining hard, literally minutes after I got back to the road. Perfect timing.
Accidentally stumbling onto the Hong Kong film awards
I have stayed in Hong Kong for 4 days and not crossed the harbour. The entire time I have been here I have stayed on the Kowloon side, not the Hong Kong island side. There is a method to my madness. I will be back in 6 days time and staying in a hotel on the other side, so my goal then will be to not come to the Kowloon side. Because I am one sided. I think thats what everyone means when they describe me as one dimensional?
I cant do it, I cannot not mention the rain. It is raining again, very hard at times. This stifled any faint notions of climbing up something at night. Instead I headed on a big loop of the main areas, thinking they would provide the most shelter, and a lot of the time they did. First I took in the ferry terminal before heading to the opera house where I stumbled onto the Hong Kong film awards. I had no idea this was occurring, I simply heard screaming girls and instinctively headed towards the RUCKUS. Ruckus is word of the day. As you will see I did not get to see any of the actual stars, but from the signs and announcers I think I worked out that at one point none other than Andy Lau walked past. This is the second time I accidentally found myself within metres of the most popular people in the whole city, years ago in career I stumbled onto an appearance by none other than Super Junior in Seoul, the original K-pop boy band.
After a great dinner featuring one of my old favourites which I have not had for years, it was time to splash back to my hotel where I am now enjoying squid flavoured popcorn (an accidental purchase).
Tomorrow I head just up the road to Guangzhou, a city substantially larger than Hong Kong. Wikipedia says the metro area of Guangzhou contains about 25 million people (coincidentally, just below Seoul), but its next door to Shenzhen which is apparently another 23 million people. In fact, the whole Pearl River Delta is basically one big mega city. Many of the cities metros (subways) now join together. The total population of this mega city is about 120 million, of which Hong Kong is a mere 7 million. Just a small town then.
There really is a lot of Jesus related stuff going on in Hong Kong. I feel as though a lot of it is fairly recent. Big money in Jesus it seems.
My journey took me past a newly constructed arts centre. I dont really understand what the point of it is, but it has this little wooden house.
These people happily posed for my photo in the rain.
If you climb up to the roof of the ferry terminal you can go out the back and get an amazing view of the harbour. It seems a very under populated location given the amazing view.
When I first came to Hong Kong those buildings were either not there or under construction. The very tall building on the left disappearing into the clouds has a roof top infinity pool that you have probably seen girls with huge fake boobs swimming in, its a favourite thing to stick on the Australian news website whenever they have a story about something rich Asians are up to. It was actually featured this week in a story about slavery in Hong Kong.
Like I said, great view from the top of the ferry terminal.
Here are some actual ferries, their terminal is made of solid gold.
Andy Lau was going past as I took this photo.
After Andy they were waiting for other people, lots of signs, flowers. Some of the signs are electronic, many say 'Please do not touch my 193'. Google has no info on this!
Random tourist pirate ship.
Eventually the pirate ship sailed off into the night.
In case you dont like pirate ships, heres the same shot without the ship.
For dinner I had Lanzhou beef noodle. It is the same all over the world, in Australia its what you get from Noodle Kingdom originally but now there are lots of places actually called Lanzhou Beef Noodle springing up all over the place. The noodles are pulled by hand just before cooking. The chefs filthy hands add to the flavour.
One last shot of a rainy Hong Kong glowing street.