Tsim Sha Tsui.

My aunt who we're staying with lives on the Kowloon side, whereas HK proper is across the water. When we take the MTR over to HK side it's hard to believe that we're under the harbor. Whoa!

Today we explored the Tsim Sha Tsui area after lunch with my godmother who also happens to be in HK at the moment. The area provides an incredible view over Victoria Bay. I'm all about the sightseeing for free or on transit instead of taking tours.

I'm still in short sleeves and bare legs. The girl giving me a manicure this morning asked me if I was cold (everybody seems to be asking me that) and I gave her my practiced line about being from Canada where it's -20C on a normal day. The concept of some place being that far below the freezing mark seems inconceivable to people.

In any case, the views are amazing and the density is just astounding. We ogled all the buildings from our side of the bay, and also took a walk along the avenue of stars (like Hollywood's walk of fame but with Chinese stars).


I found Jackie Chan! His hands are much bigger than my own. This was of particular interest to me because when I was small everybody at school would ask me if Jackie Chan was my dad.



Then it was off to the MTR station to head over to the area around The Arch to purchase some movie tickets for tomorrow.



Don has been wanting to photograph the train car for some time, however, it's very rare to find a car empty enough to illustrate the lack of division between cars. It's just one huge car from front to back.



Likewise with using our Octopus cards. The stations are so bustling that there has not been time for photographs. You just have to keep moving all the time!



The Octopus is like many transit swipe cards, but I just think it's the best. You can also use it at the 7-Eleven and bakeries and all sorts of other places. Just touch and go. Plus, the system keeps track of when/where you enter and exit so that your trips are charged via zones. That way shorter trips are really cheap (like 50 cents CAD for a few stops) and it is really encouraging to use the MTR for short trips in addition to longer ones.

As a pedestrian, these incentives to use the train even for short trips expands the radius of travel significantly! Drool.



So much construction in this area. It's really staggering, the rate of development and expansion we have seen here. This whole area around The Arch is just a mecca of new buildings. We were actually heading for the new shopping complex called Elements, which has a big movie theatre.

I'm not sure how dorky some of you are about this sort of thing, but it may interest you to know that the developer for the project is actually the transit authority. So if this was in Edmonton the developer would be Edmonton Transit System. What?! It sort of blows my mind.

As you might have assumed, this area is hooked up to a huge bus terminal and MTR station.

Gotta love some transit oriented development. I feel as though in Edmonton a lot of the building happens first, and then the services have to catch up. Here it's the complete opposite. Build it and they will come.



After more wanderings (we're big on the wandering, me and Don) it was back to Mong Kok area to meet people. It is quite surreal to be in a new shopping centre where you will see all of the world's most prestigious luxury brands together in one place and then after a 15 minute minibus ride, you're photographing BBQ ducks and pork, and soy sauce chickens in a little corner shop.



Can you tell I'm having a great time?



I bought myself some waffle street snacks to munch on while browsing street markets. I can really get used to this! Actually... I think I may already have become used to this...