Next to the shops selling spices or exotic animals in Ko Shing Street, you’ll find more shops in Des Voeux Road West in Hongkong selling edible goods from the sea – dried fish, seaweed and algae, and much more. It was a new and unusual sight for me. Tastes are just different, and without expert help or due to a lack of language skills, I decided against buying anything and trying it myself.
What fascinated me about Hong Kong was that it brings together restaurants of all styles – Asian, European, African etc. – in one city, and it seems that absolutely everything edible is actually available to buy or, since the people here are so enterprising, can be sourced. In Ko Shing Street, Sheung Wan, for example, you’ll find many shops with a wide range of food items that were previously unknown to me. Alongside spices, they also offer dried lizards stretched out on small wooden sticks and other creatures. Other shops specialise in fish and seafood.
In contrast to the gleaming and modern Hong Kong skyline with its many office towers in the business districts and residential high-rises of the Mid-Levels, many people still live in more modest conditions. All these contrasts – rich or poor, new or old – lie close together, leaving behind a multifaceted picture of this society.
In Hong Kong, high-rises aren’t just built on flat ground, but also up the slopes – as here in the Mid-Levels of Sheung Wan, which I reached via the effortless ascent on the escalator in Cochrane and Shelley Street. This arrangement creates a unique skyline, as the buildings cover the slopes like trees in a forest. Unlike the older buildings in Cochrane Street, they promise better amenities and more light and air to breathe.
The Taoist Man Mo Temple in the Sheung Wan district is one of the oldest and most famous in all of Hong Kong and is dedicated to the God of Literature, Man, and the God of War, Mo. Its origins date back to the 3rd century BC. The many conical incense coils hung from the ceiling by worshippers, which create a ‘thick’ atmosphere, are impressive.
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