Wan Chai- Blue House

Hey Everyone,

This studio term I am working within Wan Chai, a metropolitan area on the northern shore of Hong Kong.  The area is one of Hong Kong's busiest commercial spaces with a variety of architectural typologies such as office towers, parks, hotels, residential towers, and exhibition centre, to name a few. A unique characteristic of Wan Chai is that it is a collage of old and new buildings within close proximity of one another. Urban renewal projects in recent years have made Wan Chai a distinctive area rich in development, full of history, and controversial in its preservation of
old buildings and new development.

Not being familiar with the history of the site, a local family friend offered to give me a walking tour, which I found very insightful. So I would like to share with you one
of Wan Chai's gems.

Today, I would like to introduce to you to Blue House, one of Hong Kong's historical buildings in Wan Chai. Located on Stone Nulllah Lane, the Blue House proudly stands
as a remaining example of a Tong Lau that still has a balcony typology. It has been classified as a Grade I historic building and has been preserved with its
original elements intact and maintained.

Blue House

The physical structure is not the only thing that is being saved, the proposal from the government goes beyond the saving of the building, but also includes the plan to support local businesses such as an old fashioned medical centre and dessert shop.The four story Lingnan-style building was built in the 1920's and is a fusion of Chinese and Western architectural features. According to the museum dedicated to the site, the
colouring was not a deliberate aesthetic choice but rather coincidence as the decorators only had blue paint.

The very steep wooden staircase
almost 60 degrees

Despite the fact that the structure has many inconveniences, such as the lack of plumbing, residents still live within the structure. If the residents need to use the bathroom or shower, they have to walk down the flight of stairs and use the public toilets. Residents are categorized into three types: the traditional craftsmen, professionals and people who have experience running social enterprises. They are expected to participate in the entire revitalization project whether it is to giving public tours or providing publicity.The goal of this revitalization was to consciously build and nurture the traditional community and preservation of Hong Kong's heritage.

Benches on display at the Living Containers Art Stories Exhibition
Located in the Blue House

I found this building to be strange, and inspiring. Imagine, a living time capsule of a building and its residents. If you manage to make it out to Hong Kong, I would advise visiting the Blue House and taking a look back towards the past.

Until next time, take care!

Chinese New Years: Dinner/Flower Market/Fireworks

Happy New Years Everyone!
May All Your Wishes Come True, and Your Year be Filled with Happiness,
Prosperity, and Longevity.

I'm very excited to say that I had the opportunity to spend Chinese/Lunar New Year in Hong Kong. There were a lot of new things that I had the pleasure of experiencing, and I would love to share them with you.

Before New Years, I was invited to a dinner with my Aunt P, Cousins, and their families, on my Dad's side. Aunt P had prepared a delicious meal of crab, various pork cuttings, escargot, shrimp, jellyfish, abalone, fish, and veggies.

This was what was on the table when we started eating
and then came the soup, another veggie platter,
steamed fish, and abalone.

FYI:
Abalone: a common name for any group of large/small edible sea snails
(wiki)

The food was amazing and the company was great. During the dinner I was asked if I had been to the Flower Market in Victoria Park. When I said that I hadn't, my cousins strongly suggested that I walk around at least once. So I planned to go visit
Victoria park the next day.

A few friends and I went to explore the Flower market. As we approached the stalls of trinkets, baubles, and food, this is what we saw: LOTS OF PEOPLE! (at 1pm!)

I thought this was a lot of people.
 My cousins said that if I had enough room to take a picture
 it wasn't THAT crowded

Although, there were indications as to which direction we were supposed to head toward, this was one of those moments where I've had the pleasure of feeling herded like sheep, to who knows where. The experience would be very hard to replicated if you've never been in large crowds, but imagine yourself being funnelled into an aisle of people, bordered by toy stands, and having the merchants yell into microphones trying to get you to look at their wares, while hoping to be louder than the stalls beside them doing the exact same thing. The trinket/toy section of the Lunar Market over stimulates one's senses that there's nothing you can do but move forward to save yourself from straining your neck trying to see everything. Heaven forbid that you should stay in one place!

Frozen strawberries on a stick,
drizzled/dipped in sugar

There were a lot of interesting treats for sale. Among them, as seen above, were berries on a stick. There were a lot of other fruits on a stick, but I thought that strawberries were the safest things to try. Who doesn't like strawberries anyway? Well, the snack was great, albeit a little sweet and a little dangerous. My friends and I had to navigate our way out of the crowd before I even attempted eating one. There just wasn't enough room. Pointy sticks in a crowd did not seem like the best idea in the world.

Orchids, one of the many flowers
available for sale at the Lunar Market

On the less crazed side of the market was where a lot of the plants could be found. The stalls were lined with orchids, cherry blossoms, pussy willows, and many other weird looking plants. One of the plants that we found everywhere looked like a cross between lemons, oranges, and pumpkins. We had no idea what they were, but they definitely were cheery.

One of the examples of weird plants
Solanum mammosum aka. Nipplefruit/Cow's Udder/Apple of Sodom

Some of the potted elements we found were quite adorable. This ornament was no larger than a softball, but the detail and living sceneries were amazing.

Plant ornamentation

On one of the evenings, a display of fireworks between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon was set to celebrate the new year. I was told that many people went to Tsim Sha Tsui or Central to watch the fireworks, but A and I decided to hike up to The Peak and watch them there. The view was beautiful. We managed to see an overall view of the fireworks display and the rest of Kong Kong's night-scape.

View of the fireworks form the Peak

Hiking up to The Peak was great. It was peaceful and less crowded. We found the best spot to watch by situating ourselves right behind the row of guys with huge cameras. All in all New Years was a blast and I can't wait for next year.

Me and A at The Peak. 

All the best!