Appartment Block in North Point, HK Island [and link re-posting]

In relation with this (my current computer bg), other people thought of it before (thanks for the link, Mel), obviously. It's stuff from my nightmares, I was going to say. For someone who was born and raised in a city like Montreal, I suppose Asia might be extremely foreign b/c of Orient, etc, etc, but surely b/c of the population density, and general lack of anything old in the cities. If you go to Japan, most of the buildings in the city were destroyed by fire-bombing during WWII, and while it seems cool, I must admit, it's uniformly that way (concrete, white, geometric shapes). In HK, it's a constraint of space - although I never really understood that, b/c there is *so much* green space outside of the urban areas. There're mountains everywhere in HK, which vastly reduces buildable land for sure, and makes transit lines very costly to build in order to develop new areas. So people generally build up, in HK, whereas in Tokyo, b/c it's mostly flat (and b/c if you built up, earthquakes will make sure to flatten it pretty quickly), urban areas can expand and expand until you don't see a single area of un-urbanized land.

This makes for very interesting walks. If you go to Asia, or HK more particularly, it's fantastic to walk in old quarters like North Point, which were probably built during the late 60s, or 70s. It's also interesting to see the more "popular" districts like Chai Wan where the buildings are white, but with floors of concrete with playgrounds and basketball fields that haven't been renovated for at least a decade. You may also want to visit the newest areas, like Tseung Kwan O (built in the 90s), or the sub-area of Tiu Keng Leng (area was opened just a few years ago - now already bustling with new middle-upper class young families). Or even try Repulse Bay (while you spend some time at what's said to be the nicest public beach of HK), where the high-end flats are built.

Forgot the rest of what I wanted to say. Gotta go.

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This page contains a single entry by Cedric published on November 12, 2005 3:52 PM.

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