Hong Kong: sights around this urban jungle

I thought I'd take a short break from food blogging and share some photos I took in our first two months in Hong Kong. This city is what you would expect a big city to be: a crowded, noisy and smelly concrete jungle. But there are also beautiful parks with lots of green, lovely flora and wonderful fauna, each one providing a tranquil haven away from the hustle and bustle of the claustrophobic city space. The parks featured in this post were located within 30 minutes' walk from where we stayed at the Four Seasons and where we are staying now.

The fauna at the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens in Central District: monkeys swinging...

... and tortoises... um... dancing!

A waterfall somewhere in Hong Kong Park, also in Central:

Filipino maids on their day off, hanging out on Chater Road, a section of which is usually closed off to motor traffic on Sundays and public holidays. There are up to 200,000 Filipinos in Hong Kong, many who work as domestic helpers, and they gather at various locations to socialise and picnic on their day off. This is the only photogenic shot I have of them, as it is difficult to compose a good shot from crowded passageways where they like to hang out.

Colourful costumes worn by the participants at the Central Rat Race, a charity relay event which raises funds for a mental health organisation:

In Kowloon Park, you can pretend you're not in the city, but only if you can ignore the tall skyscrapers:

A graceful white swan in a still lake in Kowloon Park:

Kowloon Park boasts a Bird Lake that houses a flock of flamingoes amongst other types of birds:

Flowers are aplenty in Kowloon Park, and here is a shot of a lotus flower (impressive zooming capability of my Canon point-and-shoot:

The messy, cluttered streetscape of Jordan in Kowloon extends above street level:

Hong Kong is a wonderful city, and we're stoked to finally have the opportunity to live here (6 years after we first fell in love with this city during our honeymoon trip). There are of course some undesirable aspects to living in a big city (e.g. air pollution, big crowds), but these are just things we have to take along with the good stuff.