Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Stitch for Christmas
I have a new toy. I got a web cam from my brother and included was some basic photo software that includes Stitch! Basically, what it does is allow you to create panoramas out of multiple photos. I was just messing around with it on some photos I'd already taken and managed to create a decent one. This is a view from Tai Mo Shan, near the summit of Hong Kong's highest mountain.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
(Not Quite) King of the Hills
On November 25th, I joined the first of five winter marathons around the Hong Kong area. The series is called King of the Hills and is organized by an area hasher. Each day consists of a full and half marathon on primarily off road mountain trails.
I ran the first one (half) in Sai Kung in a blistering 2:25. I am skipping this Sunday's run on account of the yearly Santa Hash that's quite a big deal. I should be able to make it to the other ones.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Hip Hop Sketches
flat_hhh_round3_sketches_03_big
Originally uploaded by rigo_crz
Browsing Flickr, I just found this set of amazing sketches of classic Hip Hop artists and groups.
Monday, December 10, 2007
A Phrase Worth Using
When used to describe early Rome, the world’s first city to crack one million residents, “Megalopolitan Elephantiasis” means a total loss of human scale (Kotkin, 2005). The phrase was originally coined by Lewis Mumford (The City in History [New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961], p. 237). This source also describes it as “purposeless materialism” and a “penchant for tall buildings, dense housing and mass entertainments that make life frantic and choked”.
By modern standards, Rome could hardly be accused of still having these ills. Obviously ancient Rome and modern Hong Kong have stark differences; I can’t help but think of Hong Kong when I read the above definition of “Megalopolitan Elephantiasis”. (By the way, does anyone else think this is one of the coolest phrases you’ve ever heard?)
Hong Kong most definitely has a penchant for tall buildings, unbelievably dense housing and mass entertainments in the form of horse racing, sporting venues, crazy shopping areas, a sprawling bar/club/brothel scene, not to mention the burgeoning casinos across the water in Macau. I suppose you could describe almost any of the world’s most populous cities in the same way.
Whereas ancient Romans had to deal with less developed sewage and water delivery systems and poor transportation, Hong Kong does not have these issues and in fact has a fantastic transport system. I don’t often get the feeling that my life here is “frantic and choked” when getting out to the beautiful hills and mountains around the city is only a 20 minute train ride away.
Another aspect of Hong Kong that I find particularly interesting is the amount of reclaimed land here. While Japan has revolutionized land reclamation by nearly doubling the size of metropolitan Tokyo, Hong Kong has not done so badly for itself over the years. Early on, it was the old Kai Tak Airport that was built jutting out into Victoria Harbor (actually lengthened during Japanese occupation). When airport traffic outgrew Kai Tak, a massive new island rose out of the sea near Lantau Island to become Hong Kong International Airport, one of the largest on the planet. The famous Peninsula Hotel in Kowloon was formerly directly on the waterfront, but it now separated by a six lane road, an art museum and an office building.
Most notably, reclamation in the Central and Wan Chai districts have provided several square miles of new real estate which is up there with the most valuable properties in the world. The graphic below illustrates just how much of the harbor has been encroached upon. (via Wikipedia, 1842 – Present. The final peninsula pointing into the bay is the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, woohoo!).
Click on the image for the animation
As we speak, massive construction boats are pumping millions of tons of rock, sand and soil into the waterfront between Central and Wan Chai to create a brand new waterfront promenade.
Does Hong Kong have a wicked case of “Megalopolitan Elephantiasis”? It can be debated, but I think stronger candidates would be the exploding Shanghai or Beijing to the North.
By modern standards, Rome could hardly be accused of still having these ills. Obviously ancient Rome and modern Hong Kong have stark differences; I can’t help but think of Hong Kong when I read the above definition of “Megalopolitan Elephantiasis”. (By the way, does anyone else think this is one of the coolest phrases you’ve ever heard?)
Hong Kong most definitely has a penchant for tall buildings, unbelievably dense housing and mass entertainments in the form of horse racing, sporting venues, crazy shopping areas, a sprawling bar/club/brothel scene, not to mention the burgeoning casinos across the water in Macau. I suppose you could describe almost any of the world’s most populous cities in the same way.
Whereas ancient Romans had to deal with less developed sewage and water delivery systems and poor transportation, Hong Kong does not have these issues and in fact has a fantastic transport system. I don’t often get the feeling that my life here is “frantic and choked” when getting out to the beautiful hills and mountains around the city is only a 20 minute train ride away.
Another aspect of Hong Kong that I find particularly interesting is the amount of reclaimed land here. While Japan has revolutionized land reclamation by nearly doubling the size of metropolitan Tokyo, Hong Kong has not done so badly for itself over the years. Early on, it was the old Kai Tak Airport that was built jutting out into Victoria Harbor (actually lengthened during Japanese occupation). When airport traffic outgrew Kai Tak, a massive new island rose out of the sea near Lantau Island to become Hong Kong International Airport, one of the largest on the planet. The famous Peninsula Hotel in Kowloon was formerly directly on the waterfront, but it now separated by a six lane road, an art museum and an office building.
Most notably, reclamation in the Central and Wan Chai districts have provided several square miles of new real estate which is up there with the most valuable properties in the world. The graphic below illustrates just how much of the harbor has been encroached upon. (via Wikipedia, 1842 – Present. The final peninsula pointing into the bay is the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, woohoo!).
Click on the image for the animation
As we speak, massive construction boats are pumping millions of tons of rock, sand and soil into the waterfront between Central and Wan Chai to create a brand new waterfront promenade.
Does Hong Kong have a wicked case of “Megalopolitan Elephantiasis”? It can be debated, but I think stronger candidates would be the exploding Shanghai or Beijing to the North.
Friday, December 07, 2007
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Wanchai H3, Setting the Trail
Fei Ngo Shan.
If you are ever in Hong Kong, make your way over to the East side of Kowloon and have a look at a few places. One of those is Devil's Peak, see the previous post. The other is Fei Ngo Shan.
Tonight, I had the opportunity to set the trail for the Wanchai Hash House Harriers. Lost in Space, the hareraiser for this run, had recruited me for this particular mission, imploring me to pick out a good trail, find a nice restaurant for the On On and make all of the above somewhat interesting. So I had a fantastic spot in mind. On the East side of HK Island, there is a great area call Chai Wan. It's quite suburban, many mountains and trails, graveyards which are quite interesting in HK, pretty much the perfect place to set a trail. Perfect in every way...
Except that we ran there the week before. Two weeks ago, when Haggis said that he was setting next week's run in Chai Wan, I had a moment of panic, followed by the necessary feeling of wanting to explore somewhere new. So I got on google maps. Pretty much every run needs to be adjacent to an MTR (subway) Station. I found a station with an abnormal amount of green around it: Choi Hung. Choi Hung?
I woke up at 7:15 on Sunday A.M. and left the house to set this running trail. I momentarily thought about watching the Nets/Sixers game on at 8:30, but luckily gave it up (although VC with 24 off the bench would've been fun to see). I got out there, threw down the trail all along the way, through fences, up hills, around corners, over rises, up rivers, everywhere that I had previously planned out. The trail here consists of flour, plus red and green chalk. The day before, I had nearly stepped on some kind of 6ft black snake and reluctantly continued on.
So on this night, my job was to give the runners a brief explanation of the trail and set them off the the right direction. Also, I had to organize satisfactory alcohol drinking for 30 of my closest friends in Hong Kong. Hence the reason for early arrival; I was dutifully assisted by Twin Peaks, and we managed to carry 6 slabs of beer up the (236) stairs to the start. (1 slab = 24 beers).
As the pack returned to the start, I was relieved to hear retorts of 'Good trail' and 'Nice Rambos' and 'Well Done'. I'd managed to get it done, set an interesting trail through some unexplored (by the WH3) parts of Hong Kong. After a fantastic circle with quite a few awards handed out to yours truly, Caligula knew of a nice place to get some food and drink.
We walked to the grub and had a great feast for relatively cheap too. It is pretty nice when your hash works out and people are generally satisfied with the evening. It's even better when I hear the random hasher say, "Good trail, I'd never really seen any of those trails before." Truly a phrase rarely uttered in this corner of China.
On on to the next well done trail.
If you are ever in Hong Kong, make your way over to the East side of Kowloon and have a look at a few places. One of those is Devil's Peak, see the previous post. The other is Fei Ngo Shan.
Tonight, I had the opportunity to set the trail for the Wanchai Hash House Harriers. Lost in Space, the hareraiser for this run, had recruited me for this particular mission, imploring me to pick out a good trail, find a nice restaurant for the On On and make all of the above somewhat interesting. So I had a fantastic spot in mind. On the East side of HK Island, there is a great area call Chai Wan. It's quite suburban, many mountains and trails, graveyards which are quite interesting in HK, pretty much the perfect place to set a trail. Perfect in every way...
Except that we ran there the week before. Two weeks ago, when Haggis said that he was setting next week's run in Chai Wan, I had a moment of panic, followed by the necessary feeling of wanting to explore somewhere new. So I got on google maps. Pretty much every run needs to be adjacent to an MTR (subway) Station. I found a station with an abnormal amount of green around it: Choi Hung. Choi Hung?
I woke up at 7:15 on Sunday A.M. and left the house to set this running trail. I momentarily thought about watching the Nets/Sixers game on at 8:30, but luckily gave it up (although VC with 24 off the bench would've been fun to see). I got out there, threw down the trail all along the way, through fences, up hills, around corners, over rises, up rivers, everywhere that I had previously planned out. The trail here consists of flour, plus red and green chalk. The day before, I had nearly stepped on some kind of 6ft black snake and reluctantly continued on.
So on this night, my job was to give the runners a brief explanation of the trail and set them off the the right direction. Also, I had to organize satisfactory alcohol drinking for 30 of my closest friends in Hong Kong. Hence the reason for early arrival; I was dutifully assisted by Twin Peaks, and we managed to carry 6 slabs of beer up the (236) stairs to the start. (1 slab = 24 beers).
As the pack returned to the start, I was relieved to hear retorts of 'Good trail' and 'Nice Rambos' and 'Well Done'. I'd managed to get it done, set an interesting trail through some unexplored (by the WH3) parts of Hong Kong. After a fantastic circle with quite a few awards handed out to yours truly, Caligula knew of a nice place to get some food and drink.
We walked to the grub and had a great feast for relatively cheap too. It is pretty nice when your hash works out and people are generally satisfied with the evening. It's even better when I hear the random hasher say, "Good trail, I'd never really seen any of those trails before." Truly a phrase rarely uttered in this corner of China.
On on to the next well done trail.
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