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Hong Kong Island Oct 2018
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From Lugard Road on the Peak, I was able to take this photo of Government House with my 30 times Zoom lens.

It was constructed originally in 1855, and was significantly added to by the Japanese in WW2. The tower was built then and the roof was altered so that the end result was a hybrid of Neo-Classical and Japanese architectural styles.

The first Governor to live there was Sir John Bowring and the last Brit to occupy it was Chris Patten. It is now the official residence of the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Carrie Lam.

This is King Yin Lei which is on Stubbs Road on Hong Kong Island. It is now a declared Antiquities Monument, thank heavens!

It is about the same age as me and was first called Hei Lo before it was sold to the Yow family, who renamed it.

Historically, it is significant as it was one of the first residences built by a wealthy Chinese family on the Mid-Levels of Hong Kong Island.

Just up the road from King Yin Lei is Wan Chai Gap. Here there is the start of a narrow road called Blacks Link, which ends at Wong Nai Chung Gap.

Unusually, Blacks Link was a road which was NOT built for residential construction purposes. Rather it was built to provide a military link from the Peak to Wong Nai Chung Gap. It is an easy walk with no steps to climb and only a gentle incline, up and down.

From the road, there are numerous paths which lead down through Country Parks towards the Northern Shores of Hong Kong Island. I can certainly recommend it to anyone interested in having an easy hike, high up in the cooler regions of Hong Kong Island.

Jogging is not mandatory on Blacks Link. I saw quite a few Senior Citizens with walking canes enjoying the gentle walk.
There are good views past Wan Chai towards Kowloon.
And while we are still up on the Peak, here is a shot of the Peak Tram approaching its Upper Terminus.
The Police in Hong Kong have long helped to preserve many of its old Colonial buildings. Recently, the old Central Police Station Compound has been restored and has quickly become a great new tourist attraction.

It is now called the Tai Kwun Centre for Heritage and Arts and is situated at 10 Hollywood Road, Central.

These are some of the old prison cells of the Compound.

Perhaps the most famous prisoner locked up here was Ho Chi-minh, the Vietnamese Revolutionary Leader, who was incarcerated here in 1931 after he had escaped from French political persecution in Vietnam.

In the Courtyard (Parade Ground) of the old Police Compound, facing South.
In this photo we are facing West.

That is the famous Mango Tree. The Indians who came to Hong Kong and joined the Police Force brought the mango seeds with them.

This is the restored facade of the Old Police Compound at 10 Hollywood Road.
This is Pottinger Street looking South towards a corner of the Old Police Compound.

I just love the fact that the old stone road surface of Pottinger Steet is still there!

This is Flagstaff House, which is the oldest example of Western style architecture remaining in Hong Kong today. It is located at 10 Cotton Tree Drive within the new Hong Kong Park. It now houses the Museum of Tea Ware.

For many years it had been the residence of the Commander of British Forces in the Colonial Era.

During the Japanese attack on Hong Kong in 1941, it suffered damage from shells and bombs, but the Japanese repaired it and their Commandant used it as his residence during the Occupation.

Some of the ceramic tea pots on display at the Museum of Tea Ware.
This is a silver tea set in a European style produced by Wang Hing. He was a silversmith active in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries in Canton (Guangzhou) and Hong Kong and he was renowned for the quality of his work.

He had a shop in 10 Queens Road Central.

Hong Kong Park is a delightful area close to the Peak Tram Terminus.

When I was a kid in the 1940s, I belonged to the 4th Hong Kong Boy Scouts, and our headquarters was on pretty derelict land which has since been transformed into beautiful Hong Kong Park.

I congratulate whoever it was who had the bright idea to turn a non-descript piece of land into a lovely tourist attraction.

This is a shot of the domed Old Supreme Court Building which is now the Court of Final Appeal.
This is Murray House in Stanley. It was originally built in the Classical style in 1844 as the officers' quarters of Murray Barracks in Admiralty.

In 1982 it was dismantled to make way for I.M. Pei's new Bank of China Tower. Over 3000 blocks of stone of the Old Murray House were carefully labelled during the demolition and were then used to rebuild the structure in Stanley in 2001. Murray House was reopened to the public in 2002.

Right next to Murray House in Stanley is Blake Pier, which was also moved from Central where it originally stood. It was reassembled in Stanley in 2007.
This old tree in Stanley caught my eye. I love the way the roots form pillars to support the almost horizontal thick branches.

On my last flight to Hong Kong I was seated next to a man who ran a company in Hong Kong which prepared reports on various subjects for the local government. He told me that many of the 15000 trees which were knocked down during the September 2018 typhoon had been imported from Europe.

These European trees had shallow root systems and they had not evolved to withstand the ferocious winds of the typhoon-prone regions of Asia. I was in Hong Kong in October 2018 and saw many trees which had been flattened by the typhoon, and their shallow roots were clearly exposed.

Back on Hollywood Road, but this time in the district of Sheung Wan, we come across the Man Mo Temple Complex. It was built in 1847.
The interior of Man Mo Temple.
Next to the Man Mo Temple, we see the steps of Ladder Street.
On Ladder Street, these two gentlemen were practising the ancient Chinese arts of calligraphy and fan painting.

Hollywood Road is famous for its antique shops, so it was not surprising to find such activity in this neighborhood.

Some items for sale on Hollywood Road, Sheung Wan.
Not all items for sale here are strictly antiques.

Note the lady at the back firing a gun!

This is the famous Cat Street in Sheung Wan. When I was a kid in the 1940s and early 1950s, this place was notorious for being a thieves market. The joke was that if you had been burgled, you just had to go to Cat Street to buy your stuff back.

I often came to Cat Street where I put my fluent Cantonese to good use to get real bargains in stolen military gear. I would then onsell it to Boy Scouts at a very good profit. That is how I then made my pocket-money.

The fences who sold the stolen goods loved the way I would swear at them crudely and fluently in Cantonese. I was a popular little Gwai Jai.

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