Ewens-Downing Adventures in Asia

At any time of the day the Hong Kong skyline is impressive and wondrous. Throughout our stay at the Peninsula I took many photos of it during day and night. I quickly realized that to do the night photos at all well I would need a tripod. Then I realized that even pushing the button of the camera would produce some image blur during these long night exposures. So we ventured out and found a remote firing cord for my digital SLR. I was in business.

I was lucky enough to be shooting night shots of the harbor from our room at the Peninsula Hotel when the Hong Kong harbor came alive with this light show. Apparently they do it “for the tourists” nightly. But we had never seen it until this night. A sound track is broadcast to all the hotels and around the harbor. All of the buildings, lasers and spotlights come to life, pulsing and modulating, all while staying in time with the music. It is quite a choreographed show rivaling something you might see at a Disney park.

Aside from the fact that I was shooting through a double-pane window, the photos turned out pretty nice for this first time light show photographer. Unfortunately Ron had decided to go to the hotel pool to relax while I took the nighttime skyline photos. When he returned I told him about the light show he had missed.

Another big tourist draw is the Stanley Market. Stanley is a little coastal city on the south side of Hong Kong island. We had heard about a huge flea market kind of open market there. A bus that stopped near the hotel took us right to the market. We boarded the double-decker bus and sat up top with four Australian women who were also going to Stanley. Soon we were weaving our way through downtown and then the outskirts of town.

The bus led us over a mountain pass to a two lane road that followed the coast. We did not think such a big bus could make such a route. But it did. Being that we were on the top deck of the bus we often got a scare as a tree branch whacked into the window in front of us. We passed by numerous beach towns with hotels and guest houses.

Upon arriving at Stanley we started our walk through the Market. Immediately we felt like we had been duped. This wasn’t an interesting open market like we had encountered in the back streets of Macau. After browsing three or four shops that all had the same tourist-oriented wares it started feeling like Fisherman’s Wharf again. I was hoping to find some treasures to take home a souvenirs. But unfortunately there were none to be found. We made our way down the coastal street to a pier at one end of the town. I wouldn’t leave empty handed. All the world is my photography subject. The scenery was fantastic.

We happened upon a little dim sum restaurant that looked promising. Though it was in the basement of a building, the decor made up for it. The dining room was decorated in a mystic Chinese theme. The food was excellent. We had an interesting selection of dim sum followed by some tea to give us the energy to walk some more back to the bus stop. In no time we were back on the bus bound for downtown Hong Kong again.