Today, Claire and I mounted an expedition to Tsim Sha Tsui (or
‘TST’ as it is mercifully known) to do some serious shopping. My suspicions
that my tiny wardrobe would be totally hopeless and inappropriate out here have
proven correct. So this was today’s towering achievement – usually Claire has
to press me to buy even one item of clothing, but today was nothing short of an
overhaul of my wardrobe.
TST is the area that hosts the Star Ferry terminal from HK
island, where there is a lot of public space here to wander about in. This is
where I found this view of two very different towers to share with you.
The brick one in the foreground is all that remains of the
Kowloon-to-Canton railway station, work on which started 100 years ago. It is
clearly designed to look both imperial, but also comfortingly familiar to
railway stations ‘back home’. Incredibly, when it was up and running the
railway links exited that meant you could buy a ticket in Paris on the
Trans-Siberian Express, and land up here, via China. At 44m high it must once
have been the most impressive building on the underdeveloped Kowloon side of
the harbour.
Looming in the background is the ICC building. Completed in
2010, it stretches to 118 storeys and an incredible 484m – meaning you could
stand 11 clock towers on top of each other and the ICC would still be taller. A
clearer image of the colonial past being respected, but completely put in the
shade by HK’s subsequent achievements I cannot imagine.
No comments:
Post a Comment