Traces of San Miguel, Tai Po

Perhaps not a very interesting post for most, but I find these little things quite fascinating - a throwback to a much simpler time. You may recall from my recent Tai Po Walking tour that I was able to spot faint traces of an old painted cigarette advertisement on the side of a building. Well, before the advent of modern printing technology (and even now I am guessing there must be an upper limit to what can be printed?) the only option for big advertisements was to get some guy up on some bamboo scaffolding to paint it by hand. It seems to be a lost art form these days so it's nice when old traces can be found.

This brings me onto a Govt photo that I stumbled across on social media a while back. It shows a view of an under construction Tai Po Centre on the left which places it in the early 1980s. On the right is the older part of Tai Po Market with a rather large squatter settlement and various buildings. The building with the painted advertisement is actually part of the Plover Cove resettlement estate, built in the mid-60's to rehouse displaced villagers from the Plover Cove reservoir project. I was curious to know if any of the advert could still be found, so I headed down there with my camera.

Source: Govt Archives

Woodside, Mount Parker Road

Several years ago, I posted a small and fairly insignificant post on my old blog about Woodside - the large red brick Colonial mansion that sits a little way up Mount Parker Road in Quarry Bay.  At the time (2008) the house was intact but seemingly empty and had already been given a Grade 2 listing back in 1998. Though small, the post was enough to trigger some really interesting comments from past tenants and it would be a great shame if they were lost. The benefit of this repost is to note that the building was re-opened to the general public in 2012 as the AFCD Biodiversity Discovery Centre. I did make an unplanned trip a year or so ago but unfortunately didn't have my camera with me.

A Walking Tour of Tai Po

I was a at a bit of a loose end the other day so I figured I would head back to my old stomping ground in Tai Po and put together a small walking tour that takes in most of the interesting sites around town. It's not a definitive list because Tai Po District itself is massive and encompasses much of the surrounding area including Lam Tsuen, Plover Cove, the whole of the Tolo Channel including the northern coastline of Sai Kung and various outlying islands such as Tap Mun and even Tung Ping Chau (yes, ALL are part of Tai Po District). Anyway, this is a short tour that takes you around much of the town and takes you past a little bit of history, some stuff I personally find curious and, I guess, some nice views (at least weather and pollution permitting).

Some Colonial-era Postboxes

In a rather strange turn of events, it appears the head honcho at the Post Office has declared that all Colonial-era postboxes will soon be modified to hide the Royal cipher so as not to cause "confusion" to the people of Hong Kong. Of course, the real reason is quite obvious to anyone who has witnessed China slowly turning the screws on the place since the handover - speeded up by the Occupy protest last year, no doubt - so why be all dishonest about it?

Google Earth now has Hong Kong in 3D!

Many thanks to Gweilo8888 for the heads up. It appears that Google has finally got around to adding Hong Kong to its growing list of cities that now have 3D views. I'm already a big fan of Googleearth and Streetview and the fact that it allows me to quickly check places has been a real plus for all my film locations posts, but now to see a large portion of the place also rendered in fairly detailed 3D is just fantastic.