Hong Kong, Tai Po, Sha Tin - Adventure Year Week 23

Since Hong Kong is right across the border from Shenzhen, we decided to literally walk across the border and squeeze in a visit to Hong Kong while we were in the area.

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In the 40 years I’ve traveled, and the 49 territories I’ve visited, I don’t think I’ve ever crossed a border by foot until now. I’ve crossed plenty by car, ferry, cruise ship, airplane, train, and bus... but I think this was the first time I just walked from one passport check to another. We arrived Sunday night and the train announcements let us know that Kowloon station was closed. I found it interesting, that they announced it was due to vandalism, rather than not mention a reason. Our plans were only to Sha Tin- so our travel wasn’t affected. We did encounter a couple areas where signs had been posted that repairs were needed due to vandalism, but no active protesting activity on our route. Locals have told us that most protest action is being held on weekends, which is actually similar to what happens in NYC as well. Since we live along a major protest route in NYC, we’ve had months when the sounds of bucket drums approaching our windows will begin to ramp up like clockwork at 6pm on a Friday night. If you’ve never lived in a city that deals with protests, maybe it creates fear or uncertainty for you. If you’ve lived through many protests, I think you just learn how to recognize a situation you want to avoid. Peaceful small protests are safe community gatherings. Loud organized parade protests are generally peaceful as long as protestors and police are focused on peaceful measures. Harmful situations are generally something that can be spotted from a block away and avoided if you aren’t in the thick of protesting. In my first couple days in Hong Kong territory, I am reminded what a beautiful and spiritual place it is as the hills and the water and the energy of urban areas all intersect, but I also have a sense that there are quite a few places somewhat stuck in time, holding to the past when they should be letting go and creating room for change. Places that developers swallowed up, built quickly, but did not maintain well. Meanwhile, in other densely populated, high-rent cities, undesirable buildings from 1990 and earlier have already been demolished and rebuilt to create more desirable property and higher quality of life for tenants.

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We actually ended up spending most of our time in the Tai Po and Sha Tin area, where we had friends we met up with for dinner and where Alex spent some time at the University...

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Tai Po Market was mentioned in several places as an institution for fresh food in Hong Kong’s northern suburbs, and now I understand why. The first floor is considered the wet market and I was definitely splashed more than once by fresh fish flopping around or being tossed by fishmongers. Thankfully, the butchers were a little more careful with the meat splatter. The second floor was more dry goods like fruits, vegetables, beans, noodles, and dried packaged foods- plenty of ready-to-eat snacking items. Third floor was for people like me who prefer someone else shop for the right ingredients and cook them up on a plate that only requires the effort of sitting down to eat it. Last but not least, the market also had a nice rooftop outdoor space with views to the hills, where more than one person was resting off what may have been a hearty meal. Have you been to this market before? Did you manage to walk through without getting splashed by fish?

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There are a few Man Mo Temples throughout Hong Kong, and I almost missed this one tucked into a pedestrian market alley in Tai Po. Built in 1892 by community donation, and later declared a Hong Kong monument for preservation, this temple has managed to survive as a community fixture through many of Hong Kong’s changes. It’s a very small temple, but it emits a large waft of fragrant smoke as the many hanging incense coils burn for prayers and protection. It’s a special place of reverence for the community, and I’m so glad I wasn’t looking the wrong way when I walked by, or I may have missed it!

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Scenes around Tai Po’s Riverwalk. One of the decisions I’m constantly making during travel is deciding what to share versus what not to share. I know that for some people, the only mental impression they may have of a place is through someone else’s images or writing. So now, when I share, I try to share from a place of objectivity and try not to self-edit too much, but I still catch myself doing it often out of habit. For example, I didn’t photograph homeless dwellings that I walked by, I missed some graffiti because someone else was taking a tourist photo with it, I didn’t go back and get a better picture of the antique bridge as a comparison point for the modern bridge, and I didn’t share closeups of how people live. Despite all of that, I think I’ve presented a somewhat fair and objective view of what you might see if you were to wander on foot here as I have. I don’t think I’ve edited too heavily or focused too much on a particular narrative other than “this is what it looks like.” I’ve seen many river walks in my life, so of course there are some more beautiful ones in the world, and I could have decided this one wasn’t remarkable enough to share, but something compelled me to be here and take it in, to capture this, and so here it is. I’m sure designing and constructing this riverwalk would have been a large city planning undertaking, and if you live in Tai Po, this would be a welcome respite and place to relax and reconnect with a piece of nature. At least that’s the perspective I bring when I escape the density of buildings in NYC and reach the edge of the Hudson River. I feel like this is a natural human desire- wanting space to breathe, a place to connect with nature, a place to feel at peace. Something about waterways makes this easier than being in the middle of a park. River walks are public space treasures, no matter how fancy or how humble, and I’ve always appreciated living in and walking around places that have them.

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This view from Sha Tin had something unique to offer each hour of the day as the light shifted focus between the colorful sky and water at sunset, to the lights of the urban environment when the hills disappeared into the night, to the day light reflecting off the greenery, buildings, and hills. When commuting by car or train- this particular stretch of buildings set at the base of the hills became quickly recognizable to let us know we were near Sha Tin once again.

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I did eventually make it into Hong Kong Wan Chai area, and felt like I was transported back in time to the 1990s - even the taxis felt like new older cars!

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Wan Chai station in Hong Kong feels a lot like Chinatown NYC, but with much better signage. I never take bilingual English signage for granted when I’m in a foreign country, even if it is because the Brits went off and colonized everything. I often feel like I won the language lottery by being born into an English speaking country because it does have so many travel privileges. I love how thoughtfully designed the signage here is because it makes the city so visitor friendly. I snap photos of tourist maps whenever I find them just in case it helps me later or points me to a local highlight I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. I’m also struck by how chill everyone is here. There’s no feeling of rushing to get anywhere (but it is mid-day and not commuter hour), and everyone likes to keep some room between them and the person in front of them- unlike what I’ve experienced in some parts of Shanghai and Beijing while in the subways. Even though this station has a feeling of being older, the excellent navigation and chill people vibes already make me a fan of the Hong Kong subway. (PS. If there was any evidence of protest- I certainly didn’t see it here- must have been somewhere else.)

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Stepping out onto Lockhart Road in Hong Kong from Wan Chai station didn’t give me a clear sense of why Lockhart Road was listed on the tourist map. I had to read other internet sources to figure out the significance. Wikipedia mentioned it as the main road running the length of Wan Chai. CNN had an article in it being a popular night club district. One TripAdvisor reviewer called it the redlight district not to enter at night, while another reviewer felt it was as close to Old Hong Kong as the city gets. My raw impression was that it has some international food restaurants that also serve alcohol, like a Mexican Cantina, a British Pub, and some Turkish Street Food. There are some neon signs for retail stores, bodegas with cigarettes, and foot massages. Not much different than walking down nightlife streets of NYC. I imagine that much like any urban nightlife district- you can find trouble if you’re looking for it or you can just have an ordinary evening experience if you’re just grabbing dinner out. What really fascinated me here was how everything on the street seemed frozen in time, somewhere between the 1980s and 1990s, like a movie set. Even the taxis are an older style that really isn’t produced elsewhere now, and yet these cars still somehow seem new, as if there’s a factory pumping them off the line somewhere- or like the way that Cuba still has amazing cars from the 1950s that only appear at antique car shows elsewhere in the world now. It feels like everyone built what they wanted during that time period and then just kept it that way. It’s a bit surreal when it’s all put together in a major international hub of a city, and it makes me wonder what kind of circumstances make a place stay frozen in time like this while the rest of the world around it just keeps changing?

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I never thought I’d offer such an ode to public infrastructure, but something about the extensive elevated pedestrian pathways through Hong Kong make me very happy. Maybe it’s because I didn’t put on sunscreen, and these walkways offer me shade while I try to make my way to the waterfront. Or perhaps it’s that I don’t need to stop at any intersections while cars whiz by above and below me. Could it be the romance of elevated skyline views making it easy to stop and get sentimental without someone trying to plow me over? I don’t know- but I’m getting all sorts of romantic over these pedestrian pathways. Can someone please make a movie with the walkways as the main character? I feel like they deserve their own place on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. When I think of the United Nations Public Space initiatives for urban environments- these walking paths tick a lot of boxes for providing greater access and safety in the city.

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I made my way to the waterfront, looking to get a sense of something that might be an iconically “Hong Kong” skyline, but found myself feeling somewhat unfulfilled. Was I standing too close to Hong Kong’s skyline icons to really take any of it in? The views I could see of the surrounding buildings all left me wanting for something more, something striking, more unique, more individually Hong Kong. In a search for Hong Kong silhouettes, it seems there is no one iconic skyline, but rather a series of perspectives that attempt to squeeze all the unique bits into one, which was not something I could do from my vantage point. So instead, I settled for enjoying the waterfront promenade and seeing some of the monuments marked on tourist maps, which felt so far removed from the pedestrian traffic of the city. I also noticed a plaque that called this a temporary promenade, and wondered, exactly how temporary is this promenade supposed to be? Has someone set a date in which it won’t be here anymore? What would it be instead?

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(Side note for travelers: I was not able to upload any of my downtown Hong Kong photos online while I was in China- I had to wait until I landed in Japan in order to post them on Instagram.)