Alright, day 6!
Well, today, I was all set to go to the South side of HK Island today, so I got up, had some breakfast and trucked off to the Island (I also took the opportunity to take the other ferry route, to Wan Chai, which I hadn't tried before). Unfortunately, the buses I wanted left from Central, not Wan Chai (oops!), so I took the train back to the bus terminal at central and caught the bus out to Stanley - it's a wonderfully scenic ride (seems everything is in this city), and I had a nice view of the outlying islands on the way in. I got to Stanley at around 11:30, but didn't stay long - it wasn't really my thing - it's all a bit sanitised, and there's nothing really exiciting to see- there's a touristy market, some touristy shops and a pleasant beach - and that's about it in Stanley. One attraction that is worthwhile in the town is the rebuilt Murray House, which was moved from Central when they built the HSBC building back in the 80s.
Anyway, I headed back up to Kowloon for the afternoon, with a couple of places in mind - Shep Kip Mei Estate and Kowloon Walled City park.
But first, a bit of history on Shep Kip Mei - Shep Kip Mei is a district in northern Kowloon, which up until the 1950s, was a poor area housing thousands of people. In the 50s (can't remember which year), there was a massive fire in Shep Kip Mei, and 50,000 people lost their homes. In a rush to house all of these now homeless residents, the government built a whole estate, quick and on the cheap. over 50 years later, there's no-one living in the Shep Kip Mei estate anymore - all of the people who survived the fire have slowly grown old and died.
So I had read about this particular part of Kowloon in a Hong Kong history book, and had read elsewhere that it had been turned into a sort of museum, where young people could go to learn about Hong Kong's past. So I hopped of the subway at Shep Kip Mei station, followed the signs to the estate and found..... a great big patch of dirt - apparently the government have decided to get rid of Shep Kip Mei estate, and are knocking down the apartment blocks one by one. Walking a little further on, but a little disappointed at missing out on this museum, I came upon the last 2 standing blocks of Shep Kip Mei estate - old, utilitarian, 50s era cheap looking rows of apartments. These blocks are appropriately being used for an exhibition showcasing trades and skills of Hong Kong residents that are becoming obsolete in the territory's new 'knowledge economy'. Anyway, I was speaking to the guy from the group running the exhibition, and he told me that these last few blocks of apartments were themselves knocked down shortly after their exhibition finishes in late March. A kinda fitting irony, really.
Once finished in Shep Kip Mei, I made my way Eastward towards Kowloon Walled City park.
Now Kowloon Walled City is another interesting place - when the Chinese handed over ownership of the New Territories of Hong Kong, for a 99 year lease in 1897, the agreement stated that a fort inside the territory would remain under Chinese control, to aknowledge Chinese ownership of the New Territories - problem was, when the British went to take control of their new aquisitions, they were opposed by the civilian population. The British used this as a pretext to kick the Chinese troops out of the walled city, but didn't send any troops of their own in - Kowloon Walled City became a kind of no-man's land, with both country's asserting ownership. over the next century, disputes would occasionally arise over the area (The British wanted to turn it into a park), but they would always be put off for something more important - the boxer rebellion in 1899 gave the Chinese more important things to think about, and World War 2 made the whole thing kinda moot when the Japanese took over the whole lot. So through the 20th century, a kind of high rise slum rose up in the Walled City (though the japanese tore the actual wall down in the early 1940s), with prostitution, gambling and crime running wild. Eventually, once it became clear that they were getting the whole territory back in 1997 anyway, the Chinese backed down, and in the early 90s, the british tore the whole thing down and made it a park.
And a lovely park it is - built in traditional chinese garden style, it incorporates a rebuilt fort from the 19th century, a bonsai garden, and a pretty ornamental lake. To be honest, I was a little disappointed that they didn't leave -any- of the 20th century buildings, or even their remnants - it's kinda like they decided to restore forget a whole 100 years of the site's history, terrible as it was, and go right back to the Qin dynasty fort for their historical element - but I guess that's the way it's done. And it is a terribly nice park.
Anyway, once I was done in Kowloon City, I headed down to Tsim Sha Tsui (The southern tip of Kowloon peninsula) to do a bit of wandering/browsing of shops, then walked back up to Mong Kok for dinner - I'm getting the hang of pointing and gesticulating at things on the menu like I had to do last night, but I was lucky enough to be served at the japanese fast food place by a girl that spoke good english - 'cos my cantonese - not so good :p I'm still trying to work up the nerve to buy something from the stand on the corner shopfront of my building - they seem to cook up anything and everything, stick it on a skewer and sell it to people in need of a snack while doing their late night shopping. from dim-sims to frankfurts to tofu to what looks a heck of a lot like baby octopus legs, they've got everything - it looks terribly appealing, and it's very popular with the locals.
Anyway, I'm gonna be on my way - I think I'm gonna head out to Lamma Island tomorrow, but I felt some spits of rain outside just now, so I'll see what the weather decides to do first. Until tomorrow!
