Not your usual Christmas Day hike sights :)

Not your usual hike sight - lap yuk (preserved pork)

hanging out to dry in the open air! :O

Then there were the preserved fish hanging out

equally in the open by the roadside nearby!! :O

A more usual Hong Kong hike sight -- that of the

Red Powder Puff (Calliandra haematocephala) flower :)

As has become my wont in recent years, I went hiking on Christmas Day with a friend.  With his recovering from knee problems and me from a cold, we went for a less demanding route today than usual. Actually, the Tsing Yi Nature Trail literally has ups that require one going up several flights of steps as well as downs and more level sections -- but since it's only 4 kilometers in length, we tacked on an extra couple of kilometers to the route by strolling along the promenade from the MTR station and then up the Fong Tin Mei Path as well as a section of Liu To Road to the official trail's North Entrance. 

If truth be told, it was hazier than I'd like today -- so I didn't get the great views along the hike that I was hoping to do.  Still, we ended up having some memorable sights this afternoon -- including of various edibles having been put out to dry in the open air, with no fear from those who had put them there of their being stolen by others!  

As strange as it may seem to those who don't live in this part of the world, it's actually not all that unusual to see citrus fruit peels being hung or laid out to dry in the sun in the urban sections of Hong Kong.  And I've also spotted octopus, cuttlefish and chicken hanging out in the open previously.  

But it truly was a first for me to see lap yuk hanging in a grassy area the way that I did this afternoon -- and things got even more surreal when shortly after coming across that unusual sight, I then spotted chunks of fish and citrus peels drying by the roadside nearby!  And to underscore how remarkable was this sight: a pair of local hikers walking just behind my friend and I also started exclaiming and laughing, and reached for their cameras when they got to this area!!

Now I grant that at least all these edible items weren't drying within a country park and there were homes within walking distance of the area in which they were drying.  Even so, I sincerely doubt that those folks who had hung those items out to dry could have been able to prevent, say, me from making off with them if I had wanted to!

Frankly, it's not just the sights those items presented that were amazing to me -- but also the degree of trust and plain assumption their owners had that these items would not be stolen.  All in all, I think this speaks to how little crime there is in Hong Kong -- something that, post living in way more crime-filled places like Philadelphia, I am so happy about and absolutely will not take for granted. :)