Vince and Fion's Place

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As most people know, Fion and I live way out in the boonies. When you take the bus out to our place from town, you actually pass through a tunnel cut into the hills that separate us from Kowloon and then drive past the pig farming and other small local farms that are still holding out against urbanisation.

Strangely enough, even though we live so far out, the buildings in my neighbourhood are fairly tall. Very few residential buildings are shorter than thirty stories. In the photo at the top of the page, you can see a building under construction in the background with the crane still present. That's a good example of forty storey tall, government subsidised housing.

This is a shot of my particular building; the one above the taxi. Fion and I don't live at the top, but we are still high enough to find a certain satisfaction is crushing all the poor folk who live beneath us. Apparently, it usually isn't a good idea to live on the very top floor because in the summer the sun shines on that many more square feet of your flat. I wouldn't know, I've never visited anybody who could afford to live on the top floor.

If there weren't a bunch of buildings in the way, the view from my living room window would actually be very nice. The ponds are fish farms as far as I know, although there is also a bird conservation park in that area so I'm not sure. I keep meaning to go out and take a look, but that's harder than it sounds when you don't have a car.

The city in the distance is Shenzen, China which is closer than it looks in the picture. When we look using the zoom of a video camera, we can make out traffic over on their side of the border. It took me a long time to get used to being so close to the "mainland".

Although you can't really see it, behind the buildings on the right there is a sort of barbeque/fairground area which somehow manages to attract customers even though they do no advertising that I'm aware of. They get more customers driving in from who knows where than from locals who live here. I think it is because with all the construction going on, it's pretty difficult to walk over, whereas if you live far away and have a car, you can just drive in with your windows rolled up to avoid the noise and dirt. 

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