23rd April

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The hammering society apparently take Sundays off. I wake late and head up to the Mid Levels above Central to have a look round up there, since I’ve not had a look in the daytime yet. Antiques shops abound and there’s a strange draw towards buying knickknacks for which I have no need at all - the thumb size carvings of Mao Tse Tung’s head come to mind - but still strangely moved to ask the price. Again, prices tumble as I walk away and I’m led to wonder what they actually cost the vendor. Is there really a factory mass-producing these?

I headed next to Aberdeen, a town on the south side of the island and the only one I haven’t really explored yet. It takes me three hours to find a bus there, since the on-street signage is limited to the termini listed on bus stops and it’s a haphazard approach to keep checking bus stops. It’s made harder by my need to head south while the major roads in Central run east-west so I have no idea which side of the road to look. Eventually I head into a train station and retrace my steps back outside again, following signs to ‘Buses’. On a station map there’s a bus stop sign marked at the side of a road, which turns out to be a large bus station underneath a shopping mall.

By the time I reach Aberdeen my feet hurt from finding the bus, and I have a cursory trudge around the shops and harbourfront there but it’s uninspiring because my feet hurt. I think at this point I’m starting to crave silence and stillness again, just for a time. I head back to my flat and do some writing before grabbing something to eat and taking an early night.

Today’s song is Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Sound of Silence’, if only for the comparative haven of my flat which dulls the roar of the passing traffic, people and the constant ting-ting-ting of the pedestrian crossings.

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Photos

IFC1
Tallest building in Hong Kong, about as tall as the mountain behind, actually.

A curved escalator
I think I might be geeking a little too much here.