HK and its parks

This will probably be my last post about Hong Kong for a while. You might be able to tell that I liked the city quite a bit. I know that I only stayed for a week and that is barely enough time to form an opinion on a place, but I would rank it among the top three cities I have been to. I could see myself happily living and working there. It has everything I want in a home: interesting architecture, beautiful coastal hiking, and decent Mexican food.

It also has some excellent parks. I spent some time in two of them that were specifically recommend to me by the owner of Hoppy Junction.

Hong Kong park is famous for having a tram that you can ride to the top of the mountain it's built into, from which you have some breathtaking views of the island. I looked forward to doing this, but every time I went the wait to buy a ticket was somewhere between 1 and 2 hours. I decided that my time would be better spent exploring the park. I have some regrets about that. I've been told that the view from the top of the tram is one of the best in the city, so it will be the top of my list when I return.

I liked the sign, especially the plants growing in front of it.

Just inside the park is the dedication to it, along with these impressive fish and coins. 

Then there was this striking fountain, which you could enter if you wanted to.

On each side of the fountain was an entrance like this.  I didn't go in, but I could see it being an interesting experience.

The park is large, enough so that I could have spent an entire day there. There were parts that were closed for maintenance. This included the aviary, which is what I was looking forward to exploring. That was disappointing, but there were some fantastic things that made up for it. The first was this waterfall:

The first time I saw it, so I went in for a closer look.

I'm inordinately proud of the framing and depth of field here.  

If you look closely you can see there's a path behind it. Yes, you can walk behind it.

I took a lot of pictures from the path, but none of them turned out particularly well. This is the best one. 

The park had a lot of smaller streams and plenty of sculptures that involved flowing water.

 Shortly after sighting the waterfall, I found something that I didn't even realize I was looking for. Turtles. Lots and lots of turtles. I spent an embarrassing amount of time with them, observing them in their habitat and taking a lot of pictures. They're charismatic animals, aren't they?

You came to the wrong place, suckah. Hand over your wallet.

This one seemed interested in me, tracking me with his head the entire time I was shooting.

From time to time, you're reminded that you're in the middle of a huge city.

Hong Kong park is beautiful, and I definitely want to go back and see more of it. I spent so much time with the turtles and the waterfall that I didn't have time to see much else.

The next major park I spent time in was the Zoological and Botanical gardens. It's a massive park that's near the US Embassy. I quite literally stumbled onto it as I was exploring, and spent the better part of the afternoon there. I was much more interested in the Zoological exhibits rather than the Botanical ones, so I didn't spend much time with the plants.

The first thing you see when you enter is this memorial:

The Chinese contribution to the Allied war effort isn't taught well or at all in US schools. The Chinese were themselves the "first to fight" against Japanese imperialism in the Pacific, having been at war with them since 1937 and suffering tremendous casualties while doing so. It's a topic I don't know much about, and I'm definitely going to educate myself on it.

I wasn't all that inspired to to take many pictures of the plants, but I did get this shot. It's a microcosm of the colors that the gardens had:

The real stars of the park were the animals. They had two major exhibits open: birds and monkeys. There were a few others that were closed for renovations, and I'd like to go back to see them. I was saddened that the meerkat exhibit was closed. There's always another time, I suppose.

I'm afraid that many if not most of the pictures I took didn't turn out too well due to the fencing around the animals. There was a lot of distance between the walking trails and the enclosures, making it hard to find the right angle with which to get a good shot. Here are some of the clearest ones I could manage:

This handsome fellow didn't seem interested in people at all. He just went about his business.

These guys were quite social with each other, talking with each other constantly. They were quite striking from a distance, and even more so up close.

I named this picture "freaky bird," and forgot to take a picture of the information plaque. So he will forever remain Freaky Bird to me.

A friend of my mother's raised parrots, and they've always been one of my favorite birds. This one was as intelligent as all the other ones I've known, tracking my movements and even posing when I pulled out the camera.

A ring-tailed lemur family. They were constantly moving, making it hard to capture a good shot of them. 

This guy was as interested in me as I was in him. 

Parent and child.

I wish more of my photos turned out, because the animals in the park were really quite spectacular. I only found this place on my last day or I would have returned. I will not make that mistake when I return.

There's a lot to love about Hong Kong, and I look forward to returning. I'm lucky to live so close. I could fairly easily make a weekend trip out of it if I planned it well. I expect to do that more than a few times over the next few years.