Hike to Devil's Peak

A view of both Hong Kong and Kowloon at Devil's Peak

 

This morning I went over to Tiu King Leng to meet up with my friend who took me up to Devil's Peak!

She had showed it to me a few weeks ago when we were walking around Tseung Kwan O and sounded like it was worth checking out and was not disappointed.

Behind her building is a giant staircase -- 500 steps -- before we start the hike. We didn't realize that we forgot to start tracking our hike until about 1km in! When we got to the top of the stairs we saw many seniors doing lots of exercises.

Looking east at the passage at Lei Yue Mun

One time she said she saw a man probably in his 80s doing pull-ups on a bamboo bar held up by two trees and he even swung around the pole like a gymnast! Too bad she didn't have video evidence but I have to believe her...

The hike up to Devil's Peak wasn't too bad, very scenic and such a beautiful day with a breeze to keep us cool in the 25-degree heat. It's February!

We scrambled up to the top and it was quite amazing to be able to see practically a 180-degree view of Kowloon and Hong Kong. On Hong Kong Island you could see Siu Sai Wan all the way to Central, and from Kowloon the ICC Tower all the way to Kwun Tong.

And because of the view, my friend explained it was the lookout spot for pirates to control the passage of Lei Yue Mun, the eastern passage to Victoria Harbour. Later the British military chose the site for defense when it began colonizing Kowloon in 1898. 

Abandoned building taken over by a banyan tree

Also up there are the Gough Battery and Pottinger Battery used in World War II. I hear the sunset view from here is amazing too!

From there we walked down a set of stairs that led us to an abandoned area that she said locals jokingly referred to as "the Angkor Wat of Hong Kong" with banyan trees growing amid some ruins, but it was hardly even dramatic, nor were these ruins temples.

We continued down to Lei Yue Mun and checked out the Tin Hau temple -- a middle aged woman gruffly warned us not to take pictures inside the temple, but the views of the water crashing next to the building were beautiful to watch.

It's sad seeing the restaurants in the area shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic, otherwise they would be busy with tourists, while, locals are not interested in entertaining exorbitant prices for fresh seafood. Only a few street stalls selling traditional Chinese snacks were open, and trying to get anyone passing by to buy something.

Tin Hau Temple right by the water at Lei Yue Mun

Just steps from those stalls is an industrial area and then we suddenly came across a luxury residential area with vertical gardens. It was really bizarre. Beyond that was the shopping mall connected to Yau Tong MTR station.

We had lunch there and then went on with the rest of our afternoon.

Hong Kong Government Backpedals... Again

The Penny's Bay site on Lantau Island where quarantine camps will be built

The Hong Kong government is now opening a tender to build the second phase of a quarantine camp after it was criticized for handing the construction contract to a state-owned enterprise, which is not the normal procedure.

The site on Penny's Bay on Lantau Island involves building 500 rooms and construction is expected to start in April and be completed in July.

The camps are for those in close contact with confirmed cases

The Architectural Services Department confirmed the contract will be awarded through a bidding process. Last week the department was under fire for giving the first-phase contract, worth HK$194 million (US$25 million) to state-owned China Harbour Engineering without going through a selection process.

Officials claimed urgency because of the coronavirus was the reason and stressed due process was followed.

"To deal with the epidemic, government works departments acted swiftly to make appropriate commissioning arrangements based on practical circumstances, whilst complying with the government's sourcing requirements and guaranteeing the quality of construction," a department spokesman said.

Uh huh.

The Penny's Bay camp is one of several quarantine centres being built to accommodate those who have been in close contact with confirmed cases of the coronavirus, which is now at 109, and two fatal cases.

Luo Huining visited one of the completed quarantine camps

Interestingly another quarantine camp at Lei Yue Mun Park and Holiday Village was awarded to another state-owned enterprise, China State Construction Engineering (Hong Kong).

Eyebrows were raised last week when Luo Huining, the new director of the liaison office had a photo-op when he visited construction workers at the Lei Yue Mun camp that was completed four days early. Luo praised the firm for "demonstrating its commitment".

Ngai Hok-yan, a veteran civil engineer, said while splitting the Penny's Bay project into two had the benefit of hiring specialist firms to do each part, but that the government was under pressure to make the second phase contract open to bidding.

"Many people were asking why the first phase cost about HK$190 million when the quarantine camp at Lei Yue Mun cost only HK$70 million in total," he said.

Carrie Lam has finally come round to wearing masks

The government's rush to hand out contracts to particular companies is infuriating when Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor insisted in a press conference that when it came to sourcing masks, money was not an issue, and yet the government went through the tendering process so it was unable to secure enough masks.

Back then she probably didn't see masks as a priority to purchase, but now she's been wearing masks in public. Stubborn Carrie, but at least she's finally gotten round to following health experts' advice.

Perhaps we need to stop paying these civil servants too much money as they are completely out of touch and oblivious of how their actions result in bad optics.