Aberdeen, Hong Kong

KL and I ventured out to Aberdeen over the weekend, located on south shore of Hong Kong Island. We had expected a traditional fishing village but boy, were we surprised!! Instead of wooden homes on stilts lined with red-sailed chinese junks we were greeted with a plethora of modern high-rise buildings, with yet more scaffolded ones waiting to sprout!
While the traditional homes have gone and the fishermen moved into high-rise blocks Aberdeen is still one of the main gateways into the South China sea. In fact, they still account for one-third of HK's fish supply today. Because of its unique location the surrounding bay also acts as a typhoon shelter for fishing boats during the monsoon season.

We thought Aberdeen still had that sleepy town quality to it and things still moved at a slightly slower pace. I guess you can put the people in modern buildings but you can't take away the deep rooted spirit of a fishing comunity! Many junks and sampans (old fashioned boats) still prevailed and are being used as floating homes, taxis across the river and of course for tourism for the trigger happy foreigners.

It is still fascinating to see the large number of traffic on the water as huge fishing trawlers, river taxis and a lone fisherman whizz by one another in typical HK fashion. Sunset in Aberdeen. We had wanted to wait until night fall to see the lights (we were told that it was really pretty) but decided otherwise in the end as my t-shirt was soaked with sweat because of the hot and humid weather.

I have been here for a week and have yet to get acclimatised to it. KL thinks London has 'ang mo'-nised me!