Reflections over moon pics and viewings this week! :)

This month's full moon :)

 

Not so full moon but I like that you can see texture in the photo!

 

Mid-Autumn night in Victoria Park :)

 

Last night, I introduced a friend visiting from Britain to the pleasures of strolling about in urban Hong Kong after dark.  In Central, he exulted at the veritable light show that I've come to think of as pretty normal -- not least because it occurs daily rather than on special occasions -- courtesy of lit-up high-rise edifices like those of the Bank of China Tower and HSBC Building.  Meanwhile, I really enjoyed on this particular evening, the nearly full moon was so beautifully visible -- and also surprisingly yellow -- in the night sky too.    

 

At a couple of points during our walk, I considered taking my camera out of my backpack and snapping photos of the moon.  In retrospect, maybe I should have.  But I didn't do so because I've actually been doing quite a bit of that this week courtesy of such as the Mid-Autumn Festival and one of its traditional activities involving moon viewing!

 

As long time followers of this blog will know, I also do make it a point to go view the Mid-Autumn Festival lantern displays held at Victoria Park on that festive occasion.  I did think of skipping doing so this year though because I had got a preview of this year's alien lanterns in the days leading up to the event while walking through the park some days earlier.  But on the day itself, I decided to venture to the venue to catch sight of the Tai Hang fire dragon (which would be making a rare foray out of its home territory).

 

As it turned out, I found the crowd in Victoria Park to be way too large for me to get proper glimpses of the fire dragon (like I've managed to do in Tai Hang itself in previous years).  Also, the evening of the Mid-Autumn Festival this year turned out to be on the damp side -- and while it had stopped raining when I headed over to the park, the rain returned midway through the fire dragon's appearance in that venue.  

 

While some members of the crowd took this as the cue to call it a night, what was the clincher for me was when many of those that chose to remain got out their umbrellas to further obscure my view!  So I didn't manage to get any good shots of the fire dragon this year.  Still, all was not lost since, thanks to the rain, I got photos of some wonderful reflections on the wet Victoria Park football pitch surfaces of the lantern display that I must admit to thinking are more visually impressive than the moon pics I've taken this month! :)