New Harbour Views from Fortress Hill

Another new spot to take fantastic panoramic shots of the city

 

Hong Kong Island's harbour front is slowly opening up more for pedestrians to enjoy the view and new public spaces. The latest one to just open is the East Coast Park Precinct in Fortress Hill.

I checked it out tonight the day after the official opening and luckily there weren't too many people. Some of the fixtures like reclining seats look similar to the ones by the Wan Chai promenade, while the area with benches look like the ones found in Kennedy Town.

Do we really need this redundant sign here?

You can walk right up to where a giant "swirl" is, an air purifier and take some great photos looking towards Causeway Bay, Wan Chai and Central. This place will probably become the next "Instagram Pier" even though it's hardly a pier.

It will also be a very good spot to catch the fireworks -- if Hong Kong ever has them again.

There are also mini slides for young children to play on and spaces for dogs to roam around too. 

One complaint is the gaudy "Victoria Harbour" sign that lights up the area. Really? Do we really need to put that there? It seems whoever approved the place was worried there was too much empty space.

But that's what public spaces are for, for people to decide what they want to do with it in the time that they are there. Maybe they can have a picnic or children can have more space to run around, play games, or draw chalk drawings.

The other thing the government and designers didn't think through properly was the name of the place. Type it into Facebook or Instagram and you get "East Coast Park, Singapore", a well known spot in the Lion City that is a park and beach, as well as recreation area in the southeastern coast of the city.

From the entrance of the park looking west

So it seems in Hong Kong, they added the word "Precinct" to make it different, but when it's not located on social media sites, East Coast Park Precinct won't get the buzz it needs to make people more aware of the place.

For those interested in finding it, from Fortress Hill MTR, walk along Oil Street and Electric Road, and then walk down Watson Road.