What's so cool about Hong Kong Park?

There are lots of cool things about Hong Kong Park.

1. it's the only place I've ever been where it's cooler inside the conservatory than out
2. they have lots of plants with really descriptive names like "mule's foot fern" and "bat flower"
3. there's a Fighting SARS memorial, which reminded us of how lamentably little we know about how SARS affected Hong Kong
4. there are loads of terrapins sunning themselves on the rocks
5. it's home to Flagstaff House, now the Tea Ware Museum (which, inexplicably has no tea room) It is a beautiful colonial building, Greek revival in style apparently.
6. it's almost entirely populated by Chinese people posing for photos, who, again inexplicably, always pose with a grin and a V sign.
7. you can see some of the biggest buildings in Central framed by lush green tropical foliage. And what's more, on a really sunny day, they reflect off each other in an extremely cool manner.

Here's the IFC2 and AIG tower, looking like they are in the middle of the jungle

Also an updated pic of the nosehair trimmer of the gods, this one's a bit clearer:

And some more of the reflections, and of Ross, looking, um, rather discombobulated


There's an unidentified building behind Ross, and to the right there's a building that goes (*those of you who know me well can sigh heavily as you imagine me doing my manual impression of the light sculpture on top of the Hayward Gallery) Anyway, the one with white criss-cross bits. It was designed by I.M.Pei, and was a serious affront to feng shui's chief geomancers, not least because of its knife-like edges. It is said that it has rather a meat-cleaver-like appearance when viewed from the HSBC tower - unsubtle I'd say. BOC Tower sits on the old site of Murray House, which I saw in Stanley the other day.

Anyway, I digress. You can see the BOC on the right hand side of the picture, then to the left of BOC is the House of a Thousand you-know-whats, and just at the bottom (no pun intended) of that, you can see the dome of the Legco, or Legislative Council building. To the left of the House of a Thousand... is the Mandarin Oriental, recognised by many as the best hotel in HK.