There are two options in getting there. First, there is the "tram", which we i n the states call a train. Or maybe we call it a tram, I'm not sure. But it surely looks like a train to me. When I think of a tram, I think of a little car dangling precariously from a thin wire, high above the ground. But evidently the Hong Kong people and I disagree about that, and that's ok. I'll let them have this one. The other option is to just take a bus up the hill. That's the option we chose. And it was quite a scary ride (up and down).
The bus drivers over here drive a little aggressively. Full acceleration and full breaks. There's not much in between. Add in a super hilly terrain and you get what feels like an amusement park ride. Which isn't as fun as it sounds when the seats are not designed to keep one's butt firmly in place. There's a lot of sliding around and bumping against walls. So no, not very fun.
Anyway, 20 or 30 minutes of this and you're at the top! They've built quite a nice mall / terminal up there, with plenty of space to wander. Actually, there isn't that much space, but I like to be generous. It was pretty cool. There are wonderful views of the city below, with an unobstructed view of Kowloon, across the bay. With the buildings all lit up it's quite nice.
Oh, I should probably mention that I bought a monopod! Very exciting. It's really light and easy to use (it's basically a collapsable stick. I think I can figure that out). But it should make my night shots less sucky. Though I'm pretty sure that's mostly due to my lack of skill. But the monopod can't hurt, right?
So let's get to those pics, shall we?
A view from the top. You'll notice the building center-left. That's the building from Batman again.
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| From What I did on my summer vacation |
This one's tough to see. It's actually the tram (train) departing, heading down. I didn't have the camera set to action mode (or whatever). It was still in nighttime scenery mode so it took a while to snap the pic. But it has kind of a fun effect.
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| From What I did on my summer vacation |
Some people in the plaza at the Peak.
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| From What I did on my summer vacation |
This guy had some hardcore camera equipment. HIS stand had 3 legs, so it's 3 times as good as mine. I wanted to tell the guy "hey, look how small they're making cameras now buddy! Get out of the 90's and get one of these little things." I can't believe people don't adopt the latest technology. He wouldn't have to carry around so much weight. Sillly man.
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| From What I did on my summer vacation |
Another ghosting effect. I actually do like this one a lot. Not sure why. Oh, that's a lady walking her dog past where I was sitting. I know it looks like she has only 1 leg, but I assure you she's bipedal. I mean, if she had one leg there wouldn't be the ghosting effect because she wouldn't be moving too fast.
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| From What I did on my summer vacation |
I was too lazy to get off my butt and get this whole building in the frame, but you get the idea. Because it's symetrical, you can just extrapolate what the far left side would look like. It takes like 5 escalator rides to get up there. They actually charge to go out on the roofdeck, and I'm a cheap bastard, so I didn't go. But actually, the escalators are on the far side of the building, along a glass wall, so it's scary enough riding most of the way up (which I did do). To get an idea of the scale, you can see the little people on the lower right hand corner (they're waiting to get on the tram).
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| From What I did on my summer vacation |
This is one of the scyscrapers back down in the city. It gave me vertigo when I tried to look straight up. Actually, that was probably because the bus ride of terror on the way down made me sick first. Seriously, a horrible ride. That's just a light pole on the left there. I was steadying my camera (on the monopod!) on the base of the light pole.
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| From What I did on my summer vacation |
And the building with the white skeleton, from down low.
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| From What I did on my summer vacation |
On the way back to my room, I saw this girl (woman?) taking pics and I thought "hey, I should take pics, too". I thought it was weird that she was taking closeups of the people in front of here, but it turns out that they were together.
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| From What I did on my summer vacation |
This is a pretty typical view alongside the escalator ride up to mid-Central (where I'm staying). Everyone runs a/c at full bore, with the side effect of blowing hot air outside... Right towards the escalator. It's kind of a hellish ride because there's very little air moving because it's between buildings, and the air that IS moving is from the a/c units. Hot and sweaty!
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| From What I did on my summer vacation |
In between a/c fans blowing hot air on us, there are some side roads. This is a pretty typical one.
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| From What I did on my summer vacation |
Another typical scene on the way up the escalator.
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| From What I did on my summer vacation |
I'm actually surprised those last few came out not too bad because it was on a moving escalator and I kind of just pointed and clicked. Hey, they should call these little cameras "point and click"!
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