Sturdy and Home (This week's Photo Hunt themes)

 

 

When most people in the world think of Hong Kong, they tend to conjure up vistas filled with high rise buildings -- some of which house offices and shops, others of which are home to a substantial number of the Big Lychee's slightly over 7 million inhabitants.  Images, in short, akin to the top most picture in my entry this week for  Sandi's and Gattina's Photo Hunts (albeit minus the green foreground that came from my having taken that photographs from within the borders of a Hong Kong country park!).

Others will think of Victoria Peak, Hong Kong Island's highest hill, and the views to be found from there. For many locals, the Peak (as it tends to be more simply referred to here) also stands as the residential and social summit of Hong Kong.  So it strikes me as somewhat ironic -- and also rather funny -- that few of the homes on it look deemed worthy of photographing -- not least because while sturdy enough, they really don't stand out that much architecturally or aesthetically.  (To get an idea what I mean, see the middle shot of my three photographs.)

For the fact of the matter is that it's location much more than building construction itself that really determines their attractiveness, prices and such here in Hong Kong.  And even while the sturdy homes in my bottom photo are located in an agriculturally fertile area, they are miles cheaper than anything to be found on The Peak -- and not because they are more modest looking either but, instead, because of their location out in the northwestern New Territories that's not far from the historically rich (but now much less so) Kam Tin (whose name translates from Cantonese as Gold Field) but inconveniently distanced from the central business district and associated high density and cosmopolitan commercial areas of Asia's World City.