Night Life In Hong Kong

After spending some time at Aberdeen I hopped on the bus and headed to Causeway bay. Causeway bay is a local hot spot for shopping and hanging out with friends. When I was a teenager I spent a lot of my time here with my friends back in the days. I walked by Time Square, a popular mall and then I made my way through the streets until I got to the infamous crossroads of the Sogo mall. You can sort of make comparisons to the shinjuku crossroad, but this one is on a lower scale. Still, the amount of people crossing can release feelings of absolute disgust from the amount of people walking all around the place. 

To be honest there wasn't much to do around this area, because I wasn't all that into shopping and I didn't want to spend time in the malls. I eventually made my way up to Tin Hau, where there is a large playground with outdoor basketball and soccer facilities. My initial plan was to play some light basketball, but eventually it became an intense game of basketball and my energy level was sapped all the way down to zero. It was unbelievably fun, but I was absolutely exhausted. I thought it was a good time to call it a day, but at that moment I had also realized that it was night time, and this would have been a good opportunity to get some night time photos of the city skyline. 

I took the MTR (subway) to Central station, and then I walked over to the IFC (International Finance Center). I made my way up to the roof top garden and took a few snaps of what I could. This was also a moment where I would be reminded about how terrible my camera's infrared functions were, and how blurry my photos had turned out. None the less, I grabbed what I could and then walked over to the ferry pier. 

Usually, when I would go home, I would take the Tung Chung subway line to go back home, because it is the most convenient method of transportation, but because I was in tourist mode, I had decided to take the Star Ferry for photographic purposes. The night time view of Hong Kong had not faltered one bit, and it was proudly displaying it's electronic glory like it did in it's prime. Once I got to the Kowloon side of Hong Kong it was filled to the brim with tourists. For some reason, I could not remember seeing this many tourists in Hong Kong. Either there was an increase of visitors, or I was living in a well during my time in Hong Kong.    

For work purposes, I wanted to take a few snaps of the neon signs around the alleyways of Hong Kong, so I walked over to the usual places, but for some reasons it felt like my senses were betraying be. I was pretty dependent on my memory so I thought my memories were rusty, but every corner that I would turn to I could not come across the neon signs that I had become so accustomed to. It left me bewildered because something was missing, and I could just not find any reason or evidence to its sudden disappearance. This mysterious feeling left me feeling a bit empty and it kind of put me in a situation where I felt like I had lost a precious memory, a friend, a culture that was a part of my DNA. 

Besides all of the feels, the one feeling that did not betray me was my hunger. I made my way to Cafe De Coral, again! (second time in one day) I ordered the beef brisket curry, a staple fast food dish around Hong Kong. Guys, anything beef brisket in Hong Kong is pure gold. After filling myself up with MSG, I headed over to the MTR station and called it a day. 

Upon arriving at home, I did some quick research on the status of Hong Kong's neon lights and surprisingly the Hong Kong government had been cracking down on light pollution. Hong Kong being a culprit of light pollution, had made the stores bring down their neon signs and replace them with LED signs. The reasoning behind the sudden disappearance of the neon signs were answered, but they left an empty feeling of sadness. A part of Hong Kong in me had slowly started to fade away into the shadows of history books and museum exhibits. None the less this was all being done for the well being of the city and the state of the world, so I do not disagree, but I hope the history of this chapter of Hong Kong will be respected, at least I will keep it in my heart.