Picture of the Day: Victoria Peak

How can you ever get tired of this stunning view of Hong Kong?

We had a visitor from out of town so after dim sum today we did the touristy thing and went up to Victoria Peak via taxi.

The Peak Galleria shopping mall is being renovated, and there are still large numbers of people coming up, so the only place to go to the washroom is the Peak Tower nearby and the lines were ridiculously long...

With the Peak Galleria not completed until next summer, there are no provisions in place for visitors to have enough facilities to help them have a decent time up there. It's practically embarrassing. Does the Hong Kong Tourism Board know this?

The Peak Galleria will be reopened next summer...

In addition, my architect cousin was critiquing the area and was unimpressed by the existing buildings. He feels there is a better way to showcase this iconic landmark than just plonking a mall on the land; there should be terraces for people to have better views looking down on the city, and transportation links could be more thought out instead of underneath a mall in a dark place.

The Peak Tower isn't exactly an architectural statement, and it looks like the Peak Galleria will be pretty much the same except it'll have more expensive stores and restaurants in there to pay off the renovations. Hardly inspirational.

But we digress... once our bathroom issues were sorted, we did the circular route around the Peak on Lugard Road. It was an absolutely gorgeous day today, with blue skies and some clouds, and not too hot either.

At first there were hordes of people doing a charity walk, but as we went along the route, the numbers slowly dropped off and we had unobstructed views of the city we couldn't help but take pictures of.

When we finished the 3.5km walk less than an hour later, we had to get out of the Peak because there was hardly anywhere to have a drink, let alone sit down with so many people there.

We went to the underground transportation area where there was a big line for the minibus and taxi, but the #15 bus was about to leave so we took that to go down. There was no choice but to stand on the bus the whole way, but thankfully the ride was relatively fast!

Visiting the Egg

The National Center for Performing Arts in its glittering glory

One of our stops in Beijing was the National Center for Performing Arts, otherwise known as "The Egg", more specifically the duck egg because of its oval shape.

On the day we went it seemed to have a cloud directly above it and a blue sky.

Four men were cleaning the back of the building

We first walked all the way around it, and it seems to be rising from a giant pond. At the back we were surprised to see four men, two on the roof -- with no visible harnesses -- cleaning the windows, while two others below were in harnesses and power washing the metal shell.

Then we tried to get inside from the back, but a security guard told us to go to the front. Turns out for 30 kuai (US$4.37) you can go into the NPCA and take a closer look, though not go into the actual venues, the concert hall, opera house or theatre.

Nevertheless it was still nice to roam around to see what was in there. And inside there were basically several strange sculptures with not much artistic value, along with a series of escalators that kept going higher and higher. They even had signs instructing people to stand on the right of the escalator!

We saw some mannequins wearing costumes, and pictures documenting the construction of the NPCA, a giant list of names of every guest artist who had performed here, and of course all the senior officials who have visited, with Chinese President Xi Jinping getting the biggest exposure.

The interiors are too cool not to photograph!

It was relatively quiet in there, and there was even a press conference going on that we were tempted to sneak into, but our T-shirts and shorts would have given us away.

The coffee shop looked sad -- two young men quickly stood to attention when they saw us approach, but we were tempted by the pastries or coffee on offer. It's so surprising that such a massive place would have such a small refreshments area.

Oh but there were many washrooms (but not many stalls), though they were very clean. 

In fact our report overall of the state of washrooms in Beijing has improved significantly again; however we did not venture into the public washrooms!

Silk Road: Friendly Reminder

Who says the Chinese aren't considerate of others?!

 

After visiting Tianshan Lake near Urumqi, we we to the loo and when we closed the stall door we saw this sign.

I have never seen such a friendly reminder before which is why I had to take a photograph of it!

All bathrooms around the world should have them!

Toilet Relief for Women -- Coming Soon

"Dick and Jane" by Tim Yankosky at the washrooms in Nordstroms, Vancouver

Hong Kong women may not be making as much money as their male counterparts, but hey at least newer buildings in the city will have more bathroom stalls for them.

Yesterday Secretary for Development Paul Chan Mo-po wrote on his blog that there was an amendment to the law last week to increase the ratio of male to female toilets in Hong Kong.

There will be a change in the building regulations which will come into effect next week specifying there should be 1.6 female toilets for every male toilet. Currently it's one-to-one.

Excuse me -- how did they come up with the ratio of 1.6? Doesn't seem to make much sense. Why not make it two-to-one?

"It is not uncommon to see long queues of women waiting for their turn to use the toilets in public places," wrote Chan. "Even men might sometimes have to wait for their other half to use the toilet."

No, really?! Maybe because he has had to wait for his wife that prompted Chan to make this observation. Why couldn't this regulation of more female toilets been in place earlier? It's not like long lines for the loo is a recent phenomenon.

And if one looks at the population statistics, Hong Kong has slightly more women than men, so that alone should mean we should have more toilets for them...

This new regulation only applies to new buildings and not expect existing buildings and venues to retrofit more stalls.

Chung Yuen-yi is not that impressed. She's an advocate for women's rights for the past 20 years.

"It's better than nothing," she said. "But I think the ratio of male to female toilets should be one to three. Anatomy differences between men and women mean women have to spend longer in toilets than men.

"Also, women often have the responsibility of accompanying children and the elderly to the toilets. So the demand for female toilets is far greater than for male toilets."

Another advocate, Luk Kit-ling, chairwoman of the Association for the Advancement of Feminism, thought the law reform "had come a bit late".

She said the government should have encouraged owners to add more toilets to existing buildings.

That would be admittedly difficult, but in the meantime we're still puzzled by the 1.6 ratio...