That happens to be the route and vantage point from which I videotaped a trip on the Hong Kong Bus Route 65, I believe it was, hitting the pause button every time the bus stopped, re-starting the video when the bus began rolling again. The trip itself takes an hour or more but — explaining why this is just an 8-minute video — it turns out that most of that time is spent not moving at bus stops and red lights.

Here’s a map to highlight the approximate route you’ll be seeing in this “Virtual First-Person” video (although — can’t give it all away for free — great views of Repulse Bay are not included in the video footage):

Instead of forcing you to listen to a chorus of mostly inaudible conversations in various languages and dialects going on within earshot of the camera’s microphone, your relaxing background music is … and for a view from a bus headed to a drop-off near Stanley Market, this musical selection will either make complete sense to you or none at all … Cracker’s “Euro Trash Girl.”

And now, all aboard! The bus — and with it this blog, as you are reading the last post I expect to make in it — is now leaving the station. Until we meet again, Happy Trails!

This trip to HK was also the first time I’ve ever visited Hong Kong Park.

Which makes me an idiot on all my previous visits, because it’s an amazing place, with enough scenes and attractions to fill an entire day, if you’re so inclined. Ponds with koi and turtles; walking paths; a restaurant or two; an aviary; a large 5-level playground built on a hillside; a marriage registry office (bring your camera); waterfalls; flora and fauna; a tea and teaware museum; plenty of backpacker chicks on benches pouring their lonely hearts out onto the pages of their diaries; the Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre; and more.

We took in all we could, but probably spent more time than anywhere on the extensive multi-level playground, built in broad stages going up the hill, and which for most of our visit was populated only with (1) me and my daughters and (2) a handful of international nannies and au pairs with their young charges. I chatted with a couple of them and overheard some others’ conversations–pretty fascinating combinations. Japanese nanny with kids from England. English au pair with kids from India. Hong Kong nanny with kids from the U.S. American nanny with kids from Japan. Even one rare Hong Kong nanny/Hong Kong kids combination.

And here are some pictures and a video from our visit….

Look! There’s a signpost up ahead…:

Turtles and fish in the background; they really really really wanted to catch one:

Scenes under the waterfall:

Flora:

Video demonstrating how the park is in a “fishbowl” surrounded by skyscrapers:

Definitely worth a visit for anyone, but I’d say it’s a must if you’re in Hong Kong with your kids. For more information on the park, check out the Hong Kong Park’s own Web site, and this Wikipedia entry.

Related:

So this time we went…but because I was either having a pre-senior moment, or because I’d just spent a good spell in mainland China, where this probably wouldn’t have been a problem, it didn’t occur to me that children ages 2 and 4 wouldn’t be allowed into the raceway proper. No one under 18, for that matter. Silly me. What’s the world coming to?

But all was not a total loss. The kindly security guard who intercepted us as we were coming through the entryway turnstiles let us know that there is a public trackside viewing area down to the right of the main stands. From there, you (and your kids) can still catch a decent view of part of the track. You just can’t bet on the ponies down there. At least not using the track’s sanctioned betting system, that is. But if you and some other chap who has also brought his kids along want to wager a few fiveskies between yourselves on the sly, that’s left entirely to your discretion. Just make sure the authorities–and more importantly, your wives–don’t catch you.

On a more serious note, don’t even think of betting with illegal bookmakers in HK. The maximum fine for that is HK$30,000 and nine months in the slammer.

Here are some pics and videos from the outing…

Getting the turf ready:

Checking out the scene:

Horses!:

The crowd goes wild:

I wonder if the people living in those apartment towers across the way can phone in their bets then watch the races with binoculars and telescopes:

A tiny bit of grainy video footage:

For a “What Web Sites Looked Like in 1996″ flashback, you might like to visit the race track’s own Web site.

In this video, we get to see a bit of Quanzhou’s streets and traffic, both which seem of much better quality than those just a few kilometres away in Qingyang.

I mean, the streets here are cleaner and wider & the buildings more modern, motorcycle riders seem to cut each other off with much more refined manners than the ones down in Jinjiang, and pedestrians step into the lanes of oncoming traffic with such a genteel carriage that it’s no wonder foreigners in the 16th century loved this place so.

By the way, Quanzhou is sometimes called “The City of Coral Trees.” Says China.org.cn,

Quanzhou is situated on the northern bank of the Jinjiang River in Fujian Province, facing the sea. It is an ancient cultural city and was an important trade port during the Middle Ages. It is also the hometown of many overseas Chinese.

With its mountain slopes and magnificent bay, Quanzhou has long been regarded as the most attractive town on China’s southeast coast. During the Five Dynasties (907-960), the city was surrounded by Indian coral trees, from which it got the name “city of coral trees.” As Quanzhou is in the southern subtropical zone and has a maritime monsoon climate, it is humid and warm all the year round.

In this scene, we’re traveling north from central Quanzhou toward “Old Man Rock,” purported by some to be a figure of Lao Tzu himself, pictures of which are coming in a later blog post.

You read a lot about the real estate booms and busts in Shanghai and Beijing (on alternate days, depending on what you read), but from what we learned, Xiamen is perhaps a better place to throw some cash into real estate investments if you’re so inclined.

It’s one of China’s top livable cities, and unless some great Hong Kong-style land reclamation project ensues, land remains scarce: Xiamen is an island “garden” city.

If “apartment in China” still brings to your mind visions of cramped five-story concrete blocks with walls decorated only by cheap Chinese New Year calendars, this clip might begin to help squash that notion. Notice the tennis courts and gardens down below and other high-rise towers on the plot. And in the post following this one, I’ll take you inside an apartment (privately-owned; “condo,” I guess) in Xiamen as well.

But for now, click to watch:

Here it is.

Thing is, the camera I was using to shoot video that day doesn’t record sound.

Hmm. Bummer.

So, rather than hunt around for some Jinjiang Opera audio recording, I’ve just added a musical background that is light years away from matching, but for some reason seems to “work” for me–probably because I’ve been going through another of my periodic Kurt Weill / Bertolt Brecht / Weimarer Republik musical tangents here lately, during which nothing else sounds good.

Anyway, here it is: Jinjiang Opera on the video, “Zuhälterballade” von Die Dreigroschenoper on the audio. Go figure.

Nuclear attack?

Wait, we’re talking about China. Make that, “Normally the main streets of Anhai look like one of those movie scenes where the approach of advancing Communist or Nationalist troops–depending on who made the movie–has been announced and everyone is trying to flee the city by car, motorcycle, scooter, bicycle, or ox cart.”

The scenes in the video below, though, were shot on Chinese New Year’s Eve, when it’s relatively calm–mostly people on foot, bicycles, motorscooters, and those Anhai ‘Mad Max’ Taxis that have since been outlawed and replaced with the Universal Studios tourmobiles.

This also helps illustrate the “ugly public areas” of Anhai, as opposed to the relative luxury the locals live in behind their gated courtyards, as described in Explaining Anhai.

And here is the video:

You can see representations of the various “stages” of housing development throughout this part of town (although the video quality isn’t that great).

We’ve caught more than a few good sunsets from up there, though, and it’s also where my Mother-in-Law keeps a flower garden, hangs the laundry to dry, and where we took the kids to play with sparklers during the Chinese New Year celebrations.

This view shows you one of the neighbor’s own rooftop gardens:

Another view looking West:

And here’s the “Bigfoot Spotted!” quality video pan from the roof:

She remembers it being “a lot smaller,” with just a couple or so buildings, but now it’s expanded and has the feel of a small campus, maybe akin to a junior college back in the States (with Chinese middle school characteristics).

Here are a few pictures and a video from the center of the sports field to give you your bearings, and note that you’ll see a temple roof across the wall in the middle of the video. That’s the temple we visited that I described in this post.

Update P.S. This is also the school field where townspeople, including my wife and her siblings, and her parents’ generation when they were schoolchildren, were “strongly encouraged” to show up to witness public executions (1950s-1980s) as civic lessons in “what happens when people break the law.”

Our tour guide and narrator, one Mr. Sato, was quite the humorous one–I especially loved his commentary on the size of the Police Headquarters: Tokyo is so safe that there’s no need for police on the streets…so they just built a big building for them all to sit in and watch TV. (Just try getting away with a crack like that, all you tour guides in China.)

And the educational angle: In case you’ve been wondering how to say “bus” or “light” in Chinese, listen carefully. You’ll hear my then four-year old daughter ask (and get the answers from) my Wife in the middle of this.