HK5 -- Hitting the ground.

Down on the streets, between the buildings and in the alleys and sidestreets... Hong Kong keeps a good pace - not as pushy and frantic as New York... I think the heat slows everyone down. One of my personal favourite elements of Hong Kong is its skyways... though not elaborate enough to compete with those of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, you can still walk a fair distance without leaving the buildings of HK.
Though not the most amazing example we witnessed, here is bamboo being used in scaffolding. It is a surreal juxtaposition of natural materials being used within, and to create, an otherwise synthetic urban environment. From the windows of lofty hotel rooms and restaurants we saw traffic islands completely unaccessible to pedestrians planted and cultivated like oases -- manicured nature to be viewed from afar, and to have some tiny counter-effect against the smog.

And here's an example of the wonderfully simple and comforting store and company names found in Hong Kong. If this store were in the US, the name would undoubtedly be shortened to some nonsensical term: Fritradco perhaps. Though it is strange to consider that friendship and consumerism can be somehow merged, and to find true friendship in a store... and how sad that friendship could be read as a commodity in this signage.

This is likely to be my last post on Honkers... if we meet one day for lunch, remind me to tell you my Hong Kong stories about the Flagstaff House Museum of Teaware, three massages, dim sum, Australia's richest man, toilets with glass doors, the many homes of Jackie Chan, and my dubious sighting of Mr. Matthew Broderick-Parker.