Although, to give HK it's due, it's not alone in wanting to create a perfect synthetic world. it seems to me that the underlying vision of all the marketing/advertising departments in all the world is that the perfect life is one that is conducted via electronic communications device in a fully designed space. It's a touching unanimity, given that a conspiracy theory probably isn't a reasonable explanation.
This trip I was determined to see more of Hong Kong than the tourist-in-transition bit.
I sort-of succeeded. Anyway, I saw a bit more than I had previously managed.
Being, as you may have noticed, a bit of a sucker for boats, I was keen to see Aberdeen which is famous for retaining a chunk of the old-fashioned live-on-a-boat ambiance. As you can see, it should be famous for adapting brilliantly to the consumer age. Once, dinner on a floating restaurant was a something to be negotiated in a fairly ad-hoc kind of way (and I'm sure it's still possible to do it that way, although I doubt any of the boats see it as a sideline these days. Even on the small sampan restaurants, it's pretty clearly their main business. Not that I am complaining, it's just that what looks like a scene from 50 years ago ago is in fact uniquley touched by its current age) But now the main game is this floating restaurant, which has taken over the centre of the harbour. Well, this bit of the harbour anyway, Aberdeen ahrbour is not a simple place. In a triumph of pragmatism though, you can see the 
rear of the restaurant here. No use wasting paint on what the punters can't see. That may have to change though, because residential developments are starting on the shore opposite the backside of the Jumbo floating restaurant, and I'm assuming it won't be good business for them to antagonise the potential clientele residing in that building with a view of the water.You can also see, in the top photograph, the three crossections that define hong Kong island - the water, the high-rise, and the hills. This is part of its undeniable charm in fact, because no matter how much I might mock, there is a great buzz in stepping off the Star Ferry, and passing through the lobbies of the skyscrapers to emerge into a mountain. OK, no Star Ferry around this side, but the rapid transition from water to mountain via construction remains the same. Well, the Chinese invented landscape painting about 1200 years before the Europeans (strange but true),, and it's called "mountain-and-water" painting still (and considered to be the most difficult painterly skill) so I guess the fascination with the relationship between the water and the land is not unique to me.
Wanchai looks a bit like Central, and in fact it is pretty much adjacent to Central (the Admiralty subway station intervenes) but the difference is that the walkways aren't so polished as Central, and they largely take you down to the street where you find yourself in the kind of streetscape popular with Jackie Chan chase scenes; lanes, stalls, lots of people, neon lights, bars, a sex industry, small shops, crowded restaurants. In fact we had lunch in a crowded Vietnamese restaurant where the proprietor correctly identified as tourists (was it the three cameras?) and provided specific, clear and correct instructions on how to catch the bus - HK $10 - to Aberdeen rather than wasting Hk $70 on a taxi. We didn't manage to find the bus depot though, which is how I know the cost of the taxi. We DID catch the bus back, thus confirming our restaurateur's expertise.
Wanchai looks a bit like Central, and in fact it is pretty much adjacent to Central (the Admiralty subway station intervenes) but the difference is that the walkways aren't so polished as Central, and they largely take you down to the street where you find yourself in the kind of streetscape popular with Jackie Chan chase scenes; lanes, stalls, lots of people, neon lights, bars, a sex industry, small shops, crowded restaurants. In fact we had lunch in a crowded Vietnamese restaurant where the proprietor correctly identified as tourists (was it the three cameras?) and provided specific, clear and correct instructions on how to catch the bus - HK $10 - to Aberdeen rather than wasting Hk $70 on a taxi. We didn't manage to find the bus depot though, which is how I know the cost of the taxi. We DID catch the bus back, thus confirming our restaurateur's expertise.
I pretty much couldn't have said anything good to you about Tsim Sha Shui, which is the pointy end of Kowloon, until I found this park. In point of fact, I have walked past the sandstone walls of the park - raised about 10 metres from street level - about ten times in my life, each time too busy to stop and investigate, and each time promising myself that next time I would. Along with water, I'm quite partial to secret gardens. (More influences of childhood fiction consumption).
If you are in Tsim Sha Shui, don't do anything except visit the park. Don't shop, don't eat, don't talk to strangers. But do visit the park. The flamingos were the most unexpected nice feature of it, but the expected features (trees, lakes, walkways, flowers, seats, people) are just as nice. And I'm using nice in a very positive way here - oasis/refuge nice.
We visited a couple of other places, Mongkok (need a hotel room for an hour?) and Sham Shui Po (mahjong clubs with the swish-click of the shuffle penetrating through the smoked
glass windows to the street), but primarily with shopping in mind, so no cameras which was possibly an error, since they were interesting places and we didn't find anything to buy. After China, what the HK tourist brochures call a "retail market" is a distinct anti climax, perhaps one or two smallish floors of stalls. In China there would be 4 adjacent buildings, each bigger than the last and each with 8 floors of stalls and things smaller than stalls (is there a word for that?). The effect on us was that we would walk through a HK market waiting to see more, and there there wouldn't be any. So we'd set off for the adjacent building, but there wasn't one. So then we'd give up. Of course, maybe we misread the guides, but I don't think so. It's just that Hong Kong is actually a small place, something that I never noticed before because coming the other way (from Australia) Hong Kong puts more people in front of you in ten minutes than you would ordinarily see in Sydney in a week of Chinatown restaurants, and that tends to make you think it's a big place, contrary to the map.
glass windows to the street), but primarily with shopping in mind, so no cameras which was possibly an error, since they were interesting places and we didn't find anything to buy. After China, what the HK tourist brochures call a "retail market" is a distinct anti climax, perhaps one or two smallish floors of stalls. In China there would be 4 adjacent buildings, each bigger than the last and each with 8 floors of stalls and things smaller than stalls (is there a word for that?). The effect on us was that we would walk through a HK market waiting to see more, and there there wouldn't be any. So we'd set off for the adjacent building, but there wasn't one. So then we'd give up. Of course, maybe we misread the guides, but I don't think so. It's just that Hong Kong is actually a small place, something that I never noticed before because coming the other way (from Australia) Hong Kong puts more people in front of you in ten minutes than you would ordinarily see in Sydney in a week of Chinatown restaurants, and that tends to make you think it's a big place, contrary to the map.
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