I know that back home in Cape Town the tradition is to have a HUGE Christmas lunch followed by an afternoon nap, only to be followed by more food.
Here in Hong Kong we like to take a walk after a HUGE lunch and out on the Gold Coast, one place to walk off the huge lunch is to the Gold Coast Piazza.
My son Ethan took the following pictures:
No guessing what the Christmas theme at the Gold Coast Piazza is! (Pics: Ethan Jansen)
My family attended midnight mass at the St. John’s Anglican Cathedral in Central last night.
The service was being broadcast live on RTHK (English) which could account for the packed church.
I always overheat (despite it being winter) so I didn’t mind sitting in the garden with about another 200-odd people watching the service on a big-screen. Those who have been in that part of Central will agree that the St.John’s cathedral Garden is a magical place what with the beautifully-lit HSBC and China Bank building right next door.
Howzit-HongKong.com wishes all our readers and all South Africans in Hong Kong a Blessed Festive Season and a Prosperous New Year!
I managed to Tweet these 2 pics from the Cathedral Garden:
Few cities around the world can beat Hong Kong when it comes to it’s city-wide Christmas light-shows.
One would think that, with the world-wide focus on power-saving geared towards a greener earth, that the city-fathers would rather encourage developers and building/mall-owners to spend less on electrifying their Harbour-side properties.
Not Hong Kong!
From the heavy competition between Malls, tourist attractions such as DisneyLand, to restaurants and sky-scrapers… millions of dollars are spent over the festive season.
The DisneyLand castle’s faux snow.
IFC Mall in Central. HK’s hundreds of malls all compete for business… (Pic: Flickr)
Tsim Sha Tsui East, near my apartment in Hung Hom
I found this YouTube clip to show you the view of the skyline on either side of Victoria Harbour:
I have noticed that in Hong Kong, there is one particular day when winter almost ‘officially’ arrives.
No, that day is not announced live on Pearl TV.
Instead, that day is announced rather un-officially by the general Hong Kong population, or as they would say back home in South Africa… by the-man-in-the-street.
However, on this side of the noodle-curtain, the woman-and-school-child-in-the-street.
Let me explain:
There is one particular day this time of the year when most Hong Kong (Chinese) women appear, in public, with appropriate winter clothes.
Here I’m talking about jackets, scarves, boots and something that seems to be en-vogue these days: furry leg warmers. Similarly, kids at schools all around the Territory have to don their school’s winter uniform. Maybe that is the key to women’s coordinated change of outfits: their kids and their schools announce THAT date.
I love Hong Kong winters and what lovely, bright, crisp days we have had for the last couple of days.
I found myself on the Hung Hom to Wah Chai Star Ferry this morning (Christmas shopping) and couldn’t help but notice the lovely blue skies and matching waters of Victoria Harbour:
The overly blue photos can be blamed on me playing around with my camera, but what a lovely day on the Victoria Harbour seas today!
Tsim Sha Tsui seen from the Star Ferry en-route to Wan Chai (Pic: Mike Jansen)
In my opinion, winter is the best time to be trawling the many Hong Kong markets. In fact, it’s the best time to be doing anything outdoors this side of the noodle-curtain.
If there’s one thing I loath, it’s making my way through the throngs in a market while it’s 35 degrees with 99% humidity.
The family and I found our way to Sham Shui Po for some computer repairs and naturally found ourselves trawling the night market just outside the Golden Computer Centre. The centre is a famous landmark in the district as anything electronic can be had for cheap in this place.
Anything electronic from $1 can be had at the Golden Computer Centre, Sham Shui Po
As I am typing this, I can see the flashing Christmas decorations covering the buildings here in Tsim Sha Tsui East (near the Kowloon Shangrila Hotel). This district must have some of the best skyline decorations during the festive season. Christmas in Hong Kong is therefore well and truly in the air here in Hong Kong.
My neighbourhood of East Tsim Sha Tsui/Hung Hom comes alive during Christmas
That means that street- and night markets are making most of their turnover from selling Christmas decorations and Sham Shui Po is not left out, as we found today.
The Sham Shui Po street market on a regular day
Here is a video clip I shot with my iPhone today:
South Africans visiting the city always ask me where they can buy “cheap electronics” and I always direct them to the Golden Computer Centre in Sham Shui Po.
Sham Shui Po is on the RED LINE of the MTR, the 5th stop after Tsim Sha Tsui (TST).
Take exit D to the Golden Computer Centre.
When you exit on the ground level, the Centre is directly opposite the MTR exit.
Nury Vittachi is a columnist for Hong Kong’s free English daily The Standard. He wrote this delightful piece about the universal nature of latter-day Christmas:
I hate people who corrupt Christmas, my favorite holiday.
And I am NOT showing religious bias here. My father was a Muslim and my mother a Buddhist, but when it came to December, we all became fervent Christians, even our imam. You may say this shows a lack of respect to the beliefs of our forebears, to which I would reply: get real.
You give folk a choice between going to work as normal, or staying home and wallowing in an orgy of affection, food and gifts under a tree, and suddenly we are all into tolerance and understanding, even atheists.
But before fundamentalists from any faith burn down my house, let me make it clear that I believe all major codes of belief deserve respect, INCLUDING the silly ones.
I have been fortunate enough to have travelled extensively and, in my honest opinion, nobody but NOBODY does (commercial) Christmas better than Hong Kong! The mega-corporates who own the mega-malls that dot the Hong Kong landscape leave no stone un-turned, no speck of dust around spotless mall-floors and no cent in their huge Christmas-promotion budget unspent come mid-November. That is when the competition starts. Malls in Hong Kong do battle in an unofficial “Best Christmas Display of the Year,” vying for the hard-earned (sometimes the not-so-hard-earned) dollars of locals, Mainland Chinese and other visitors.
This is what I’m talking about:
(Visit this page regularly, I will update the pics throughout this Christmas-week)
