This afternoon I decided to find the General Post Office on Hong Kong Island to get some stamps so that I can send some postcards. No puny neighborhood branch for me, I headed for the big one just to see what there is to see around it. It's located close to the harbor near the ferry piers in Central. Central is Hong Kong's high-flying business center with all kinds of gawk-worthy skyscrapers and also where you find some interesting historical government buildings, churches and parks. Before I left home I studied a map so that I'd have a pretty good idea where to get off the tram and where to go once on foot. I didn't pull out a map even once on my outing. This was not due to any superior map-memorizing and navigating on my part, but rather a credit to the plethora of superior signage (in English and Chinese) clearly directing me to all the places I needed to find. In this respect, Hong Kong acts as if it likes its tourists.
Errand finished easily at the post office, I headed to Statue Square where there is actually only one statue remaining. All the rest of them, which were of British royalty, were removed by the Japanese when they occupied Hong Kong during WWII. The square is a fairly good place to view the Bank of China building. That's the asymmetrical one with triangles in the center back of this photo. It was designed by the renowned Chinese-born American architect I.M. Pei. It's hard to tell from this vantage point, but the design is supposed to give the impression of bamboo shoots (symbolizing prosperity), but some critics say that instead it resembles a meat cleaver, particularly on the side that faces rival bank HSBC.
It didn't take long to weary of all the traffic and the exhaust fumes, so I headed uphill to find Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens. This is one of many green, relatively peaceful spaces a person can find in ultra-urban Hong Kong. Once inside the gardens I was amazed that the trees muffled vehicle noise to a dull deep buzz, and some of that buzz was drowned out by the waterfalls and the birds singing away in the aviaries. The gardens opened in 1864. The fountain in the middle of the photo was installed at that time. I didn't spend a lot of time here, but enough to spot a clutch of scarlet ibis in the corner of an aviary, which were the most gorgeous shade of red I think I've ever seen. Seeing them reminded me of a short story by that title that I remember using with middle schoolers many years ago; and there I was many decades later seeing scarlet ibis live for the first time.
My phone rang most conveniently just a few minutes before I exited the garden. Even if I had heard the ring out on the Central streets, I doubt I would have been able to hear the caller. It was the principal at an international school within a 15-minute walk from our apartment, where I'd dropped off my resume this morning. He asked me to come in next week to talk about doing some substitute teaching at the school. Excellent.
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