Showing posts with label birding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birding. Show all posts

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Birds, Flowers, and Fish

The next day we spent hours at the Hong Kong History Museum— it is a great museum.  The first floor is all about the Chinese heritage of Hong Kong and the sailing history of the bay; and upstairs is how the British screwed the Chinese over with opium and then took over the island with a 100 year lease.  

Having Flat Stanley with me meant that he must pose with replica opium crates and balls!  This is for educational purposes, after all.  Flat Stanley also drove a tram and sat with me on the trolley.





The section of Hong Kong after World War II was fascinating to us, especially knowing that Edward was stationed here during the Korean War.  He commented that when he was there in the later 1950s, the only tall buildings were the St. John Church and the Standard & Pours bank (8 stories high).  We laughed at that, as we craned our necks up to see the tops of the hundreds of skyscrapers that now make up the skyline of Hong Kong.  In the 1960s section, we kept listening to this great song by the Reynettes, “ Kowloon Hong Kong”   You should take a listen….



After the museum, we walked to the bird street and the flower street, passing the best idea ever: a dog latrine. 




Yuen Po Street is where the bird market is.  One can buy almost any type of bird, from finishes to toucans, and take them home as pets.  There are several birds crammed into bamboo cages, porcelain water & food dishes, and other bird-care products all for sale.   There is a garden near-by, where you can see old men preening their birds trying to get a song out of them (no one was there when we passed by, cuz it was raining).  





This street was more sad to me as so many birds were crammed into small cages.  There were large parrots that could hardly open their songs.  The toucan just looked so depressed in a small cage that he could hop around in but not fly.  I was glad to leave this street.


We wandered over to the flower market, where orchids and bonsais and all the paraphernalia are sold: small statues for the bonsais, gorgeous large pots for the orchids.  If we did live in Hong Kong, I can guarantee that we would have no furniture in our flat, just miniature trees and sprays of orchids.











Further on, we came across the fish street, where every time of fish is sold, displayed in plastic bags hung from a rack.  Some of the bags were about 10 gallon, half filled with water and the largest fish I have ever since, hung up for sale.  



Most were beta fish and clown fish. We did see lots of people buying the baggies, so hopefully the fish don’t spend too much of their lives hanging around in plastic.




Sunday, June 8, 2014

First Day in Hong Kong

 We made it to Hong Kong— and man, it is it tall!

First impressions are important and after being in a city without any public transportation, the amazing train from the airport to the center was awesome: fast, clean, easy, and comfy.  It took us about 35 minutes on the train to get to the Central, walking straight onto the train from the airport.  It was perfect.  Switching lines at Central, we were staying in the Sheung Wan area on Hong Kong Island.  The hotel wasn’t anything special and we were on the 29th floor, and there were lots of taller building around us.  Coming from DC, where there is a height restriction, seeing all these skyscrapers is just astonishing.

from our hotel room, looking into bay

looking out the windows in our hotel into the city

We went for a neighborhood walk in one of the earliest settled areas by the British.  We were a few blocks away from Possession Street, the original site of occupation of Hong Kong Island by the Brits in 1842.  It is also the Wholesale District, where shop after shop sells dried seafood and herbal medicines.  The whole area reeks of rotting seafood and salt and most shop owners are very reluctant to have their photos taken.  This is their business, dealing in Chinese traditional food and medicines, and they do not like all the tourists coming by with their cameras.  I had to be quite stealthy in snapping some of these shots.
drying fish on the guard rail by a busy street corner 

dried seafood shop

mushrooms and dried mussels

birds’ nests

mushrooms
 The public transport options in Hong Kong are endless: the metro. ferries, buses, cabs, and trams— our personal favorite.  Entering from the back, you pay when you leave out the front.  They have a limited area where they run, but it is all you need: you are traveling along the main road on Hong Kong Island and you pass by several metro stops.   Each ride was 2,60 HKD, or about 30¢ US.  So cheap and so fun!  The trolleys are very narrow and tall, and sitting on the upper level, you are about 2 stories off the ground.

Because of the space restrictions all over Hong Kong, buildings are squeezed in and build upwards.  Every space is planned out and used to maximum capacity.  Parks and green spaces aren’t natural, but  maintained and made to look wild.




Man Mo Temple
 We went to Hong Kong Park, a large recreational area surrounded by skyscrapers.  We wandered through the Edward Youde Aviary and the Forsgate Conservatory.


orchids in the conservatory



water iris

celebrating the 2008 Beijing Olympics

banyan tree


The aviary has about 90 species of birds (about 600 of them total) flying around this man-made rain forest.  We walked through the treetops on a wooden walkway and the birds were quite used to humans, landing on the railings and squawking at us, wanting food and grain.


crested pigeon