Texture and Local Streets (This week's Photo Hunt themes)

Images that capture the texture (as in the substance and character) of local streets.  That was what I set out to look for for this entry for Sandi's and Gattina's Photo Hunts this week.  And I think I've found them in the three photos taken in different parts of Hong Kong at the top of this blog post.

The top-most photo shows a street in Hong Kong's Central District.  Not the geographical center of the territory (or even Hong Kong Island), it is so named because it's historically been the territory's central business and administrative area.  And although there are more vibrant shopping areas elsewhere in the Big Lychee, it still is the place to be in the minds of many people -- including those charged with deciding the location of flagship stores for luxury fashion brands and such; a place with a smooth, cosmopolitan vibe and high (yet not to the point of super over-crowded) traffic levels.

The middle photo is of Causeway Bay -- to be precise, a part of this popular, high density section of Hong Kong that borders the quieter, still leafier, but now also high-rise-filled Happy Valley.  With streets that often feel busier and more jam packed than even Central's, it also feels more local -- or, at least, Asian -- to me; and it is the "go to" area on Hong Kong Island for dining and meeting up with friends as well as shopping for a lot of local residents.

Of my three photos, the bottom one might appear to be the odd one out -- for many reasons.  For one, it's not of a place on Hong Kong Island but, instead, of a thoroughfare on quieter Peng Chau, one of Hong Kong's over 200 Outlying Islands that is still populated but is car-free.  For another, while advertising also abounds in the photo, the name brand here is Sunkist rather than Escada or such like!  

At the same time, don't be quick to assume that Peng Chau is necessarily a world apart or away from the rest of Hong Kong, including the Central District, and beyond.  As a matter of fact, the first person I met who enthused about the joys of Peng Chau island living to me was a French financier I got to chatting with one evening in an English pub in Central!  And the second person who brought up the topic of living on Peng Chau to me was Taiwanese theater director (and sometime film director) Stan Lai -- one of whose plays, Writing in Water, was partially inspired by conversations he had with a Hong Kong actress who hailed from that island! :b