Alice went out for a walk in Kowloon Tong this morning and found this beautiful peacock doors. It's the entrance
to a Taoist temple. Just wonder whether peacocks represent a certain meaning in Taoism or not. Alice thought of peacocks as non-Chinese birds, so she was quite surprised in seeing these beautiful birds on the gates.
And there is the influence of Klimt in those curly branches!
Alice went roaming with Fiona today and came across this service apartments building on Hollywood Road. This looks quite intimidating...
You need an access card to just get inside the building, it has a very corporate feel to it. It doesn't really feel like an apartment building, it looks more like a commercial one...does that explain the strange pattern on the outside wall?
It is a building with a door that said, 'No unauthorized entry'.
There are quite a lot of old buildings in Hong Kong. Many of them are located in older districts like Sham Shui Po.
In these buildings, lifts are usually not available. This set of stairs is an interesting contrast to Alice's earlier picture of stairs to nowhere. The staircase is extremely dark and smelly. The question, then, is...does this set of stairs leading to somewhere?
Alice can imagine all kinds of monsters lurking around the corners, the truth is, it just leads to someone's home. Ordinary homes in the older part of Hong Kong.
The stairs seem to be a forgotten part of the city, the building is too old to be considered for redevelopment. The area is forgotten on the economic map.
Alice strolled around the Flower Market today, the stroll in itself is already a very pleasant experience. She didn't expect that there is actually a door to luxurious enjoyment! At the start of the Flower Market, there is one old building with three hourly hotels. On one advertisement board, it said, 'Hotel facilities/luxurious enjoyment/hourly/over night/reasonable price'.
The building itself is interesting. If one looks carefully, there is still one of those really old-style lift where one has to open a door and push an iron grille. The building materials at the entrance also suggested that this could be a building built in the early 1950s.
What kinds of 'luxurious enjoyment' can one find in a 1950s building?
Sometime what is behind a door is more interesting than the door itself. This notice was found recently posted behind every door in the ladies' room at HKU. Alice couldn't believe her eyes. She has been a regular on the HKU campus since 1999 and this was the first year such kind of notice was posted. When she shared this pic with another HKU graduate, she just sighed and said, 'That's the price we paid.' She said another friend also noticed this change, and blamed it on a specific group of students. Perhaps it will not be politically correct to elaborate more on this topic, but it is sad to see that even HKU has to deal with this kind of rather uncivilized issue.
What does this notice tell us about the changing face of Hong Kong?
This must be one of the oldest lifts left in Hong Kong. It is the type that you have to open the door and push the iron grille before operating the lift. There are probably not many of them left, as most old buildings in Hong Kong either do not have lifts or were torn down. This one is in Tsim Sha Tsui.
Alice has very fond memory of this particular lift because she spent a lot of her childhood Sundays in this building.
Mister Softee is an icon of Hong Kong. The door to the ice-cream vendor is a door to happiness. The red and blue paisley pattern is forever imprinted in every Hong Kong child's memory. No one really remembers the name of the ice-cream truck (富豪雪糕), but everyone remembers the paisley pattern and the music. Every summer, Alice waits for the Blue Danube at night, and she will race downstairs to get her softee ice cream.
Though ice cream is sold almost at every shop, Mister Softee ice cream tastes different - smoother, creamier and tastier. Mister Softee ice cream is also the happy memory of everyone running downstairs to wait patiently for their ice cream in the summer!
I've blogged about this restaurant with Vasco, but this is one of the most interesting thing about Hong Kong.
This is one of my favorite restaurants, 清真牛肉館, a small diner selling Islamic food in Kowloon City. There is always a queue outside the diner and you have take a number when you arrived. The owner actually put a number of plastic chairs outside. of course, this is all illegal, but then it's a great convenience for the customers waiting. During peak dinner and lunch hours, the average waiting time is about 30 to 40 minutes.
Yes, it's worth the wait...the beef cake and curry egg dishes are amazing. And yes, the waiters are not very friendly.
