I still don't know why I visited Hong Kong...
Constance Mei-Yen 寫於 2011年4月6日 15:46
I still don’t know why I wanted to visit Hong Kong. For some unknown reasons, I don’t really like to go to a busy city (since I don’t know when); but I would like to visit New York or Paris or London. Maybe it is because they are busy though, they are BIG enough to have variable activities and sights and smells and sounds and what’s the most important, you will have a place to hide yourself or think peacefully when you need serenity…..
That’s why I still don’t understand why I visited Hong Kong.
My experience of visiting Hong Kong was transferring flights; the airport was the only place I truly “touched”. But it is easy to imagine a city which is just a small dot on a world map but has 7 million people in there; it must be crowded, just like living in Taipei City. For a city like Taipei or Hong Kong, it’s definitely not a good place for “relaxing” but a good place to do your traveling home work. Yes, that was how I feel about visiting Hong Kong, I was doing a lot of “traveling home work”… (Alas, if I had more money and more holidays, I would like to choose Croatia or a small island of Greek to truly relax myself and enjoy my life in a different country. )
I love walking; therefore I walked a LOT everyday while living in Hong Kong (now my legs are suffering from sore feet). Besides those famous sights, I also released myself to those complicate and narrow alleys trying to find the real life of Hong Kong people and tried to fine out some secrets that were never revealed by travel books. (I have to mention something here: there were so many Taiwanese and Chinese tourists on the streets and in every sight seeing place, but it did not mean the Westerners don’t go to Hong Kong, I’ve also seen them on the MTRs and on the buses; but frankly, it was a disaster when lots of tourists squeeze together, push each other in order to get in a train or a business store or a restaurant or even just taking a picture. Crap！ I could take lots of beautiful and tranquil pictures even in New York; but in Hong Kong, you get people in almost every picture—I always wonder, for the authors of those postcards, they must adjust their pictures by using computer soft wares, because it is IMPOSSIBEL to avoid taking a picture without tourists. I admit this is one of my “traveling issues of photography”. If it is not really necessary, I prefer taking a picture of NO people. So you can imagine how difficult this task was for me in Hong Kong. –Size does matter！it is just TOO SMALL)
(I couldn’t help but thought of this question while walking around in Hong Kong: Will I be happy to live in a city where tourists are everywhere and you see them holding cameras and posting gestures at every step of their move or at every street corner, every business building, every celebrated restaurant, and even every dish of their food? NO NO NO！！！！….that is NOT my ideal city)
The result was that I had to walk and walk and walk all day (this also meant I had to figure out how to make myself always on the correct roads but not some dead ends or wrong directions, because I only had limited time and I didn’t think I would visit Hong Kong again just for spending my holidays in the near future…it doesn’t mean Hong Kong has no countryside or some remote areas, I thought of going to those places but in this way, I might have no time to see those well-known sights and would have no conversation with people who also have Hong Kong experience, it would look like you’ve been to New York, but you’ve never been to the Central Park, the MOMA, or the statute of Liberty, how odd? Hum? ) and tried to take some good pictures that showed my traveling routes and view points of this City. (Please see my pictures of Hong Kong) (In my “post-production”, I had to delete many pictures of swing sceneries like amusement park rides or pictures that simply were too sloppy because I was in a hurry or was push by other tourists…)
Later I found out if you wanted to see a quieter Hong Kong, you had to get up in the early morning and that was what I did in the last day of my stay. I woke up at 5:30am and took the early MTR at about 6:10am. WOW！…..amazing ！ Not many people in the MTRs, I could even take a picture without any people in it. The sky was grey, the weather was cool and windy, and the air was resting. That was the timing. The traveling pictures often tell us part of the stories of the travelers and the places they’ve been to. I was so happy for this benefit of getting up early. I them went to take the “Star Ferry” with Hong Kong people (it was about 7 am, most of the tourists were still sleeping. How could I know I was the only tourist at that time? Because I was the only one who used a camera and couldn’t stop walking around on the boat and also, I looked so excited.) Before heading to the airport at 10:00am, I had seen a peaceful Hong Kong, I was satisfied.
This time I write some descriptions of the pictures of Hong Kong, you will have a better understanding of my trip. Don’t ask me if I love it. “LOVE” is a pretty strong word; since I tend to classified every my trip into several categories, so…Maybe it cannot be talked about just in a few words or some simple descriptions….Maybe, it was because I had given myself some “unusual” goals (such as “don’t touch people”, “don’t go to the famous restaurants”, or “don’t have any expectations” etc,. That was simply a mission impossible) of this trip so that when I encountered some situations, I had some unexpected reactions or thoughts—that, I will reveal to you when next time I see you……
Perhaps sometimes it is not intending to do something different that makes you extraordinary, it is doing the same thing just like everybody else but finding a dissimilar angle for understanding them that makes you and your experiences unique.
