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London v HK?

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  1. #91

    To be fair to Mat, there was some conflation going on earlier on in the thread where comparisons were being made of the HK hills with the Alps. The simple point was that they are not comparable. However - I think Mat's (sensible, it seems to me) point is that its inaccurate to compare The Alps with HK hills because of the proximity of the latter to the financial city in which one lives v. the Alps. Points were then made re: the Chilterns/Downs, which are more proximate to London than the Alps, and would therefore be a better comparison to the HK hills. And the discussion kinda exploded from there in a bit of a silly way. The issue that the likes of @SpeakCantonese have yet to grapple with, though, is that UK weather does not allow for hiking in the Chilterns/Downs for over 6 months of the year, so the point about the year round accessibilty of hiking in HK remains.

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  2. #92
    Quote Originally Posted by hullexile:
    Who are the Brits who are romanticising London? Who said that? (London has good mountain range nearby) Is this the "let's just make things up" thread.
    The frustration Mat is expressing is this.

    OP: We don't really have mountains (within say an hour's distance from central)
    Scousebanana: I'm a bit surprised about your comments regarding London's weather and access to countryside.
    JGL: I would not say that HK really has 'mountains'.
    OP: There are not many cities in the world where you can have a - as we Londoners call it, a "City job" (meaning finance/Big Law/Big consulting) - where you can also spend your weekends at the beach and/or up a mountain.
    JGL: Closer to London, I'd say the Downs are a boatload more picturesque than anything within the HK territory
    SpeakCantonese: There are no proper mountains in Hong Kong. The Chiltern Hills, for example, are MUCH nicer than any hills in Hong Kong and are 45 minutes from London...
    SpeakCantonese: HK countryside is nothing compared to British countryside...

    Why can't the man just have a mountain within an hour's distance from Central? He's not looking for countryside! FFS!!!

    Hong Kong has 11 peaks over 700m. Clearly those are mountains and are described as such. Obviously the OP has done his research and he's correct to make his original statement.

    In September the high speed train will open, then it's 48 minutes to Guangzhou South and then another 51 minutes to Shaoguan. Take a 50 minute taxi ride from there and you can scale a 1900m mountain in Nanling forest park, which boasts the last primary forest in Guangdong. There's no more primary forest in the UK. Go Northeast of Shaoguan and you run into Danxia Mountain a UNESCO geopark site. Go south of Nanling and you come to Ruyuan Grand Canyon, a deep gorge with massive waterfalls (Go google it). These areas are not just isolated areas. The mountains continue because it's China. 80% of a huge country that's mountainous stretching from the East Coast all the way to the massive mountains in Central Asia. Karts mountains in Guangxi's South, terraced mountains to the north that stretch all the way into, Zhangjiaje in Hunan, and then hitting the foothills of the Himalayas in Yunnan and Sichuan. This whole area will open up to Hong Kong in a convenient way by Highspeed rail. In the same time one takes to reach Snowdonia in the UK from London, one will have passed a few hundred kilometers of mountain ranges and scenic countryside in China coming from Hong Kong.

    To the OP, all I can say, if you like mountains, you're coming to the right place. The naysayers on here are just commenting based on their own ignorance of the place they're living in.
    HK_Katherine and Beanieskis like this.

  3. #93

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    Quote Originally Posted by Londoner4057:
    The issue that the likes of @SpeakCantonese have yet to grapple with, though, is that UK weather does not allow for hiking in the Chilterns/Downs for over 6 months of the year, so the point about the year round accessibility of hiking in HK remains.
    I lived in The Chilterns for almost as long as I've lived in Hong Kong... To say that you can't hike in The Chilterns for six months of the year is as absurd as imagining that hiking is accessible year round in Hong Kong! You have an excuse for believing the latter I suppose, having never been here.

    For comparison... it rains in High Wycombe 167 days per year and in Hong Kong 137 days per year... Now you may think that gives HK a little edge. Wrong! Many of the days that it rains here, the rain is so heavy that school and work are cancelled for the whole territory! The trails are often unusable for days (quagmire)... I'm a mountain biker and I can tell you, spring/summer are the worst seasons. Apart from the rain, you have very hot days and 95% humidity... add in several typhoons...

    My intention was only to bring you back down to earth about the reality of things here. Nothing more.

    Listen, I use the trails... I live right next to Tai Lam Chung and I'm there almost every day that I can... my wife hikes most mornings.

    It's not as nice as hiking or mountain biking in England. Is it more accessible? Maybe, I used to live on Naphill Common so I was 5 minutes from the trails there too...

    And, as people have already mentioned, the trails that are most accessible are rammed, especially on the weekend... I tend to go mountain biking at 6am to avoid the crowds... (that tip is free.)...

  4. #94

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    The frustration Mat is expressing is this: Nobody is agreeing with him.
    Why can't the man just have a mountain within an hour's distance from Central? He's not looking for countryside!
    He can. But he should be aware, that compared to England, they're a bit crap.

    To the OP, all I can say, if you like mountains, you're coming to the right place.
    Oh my God, I seriously give up... this must be the most stupid comment on the thread.

    The naysayers on here are just commenting based on their own ignorance of the place they're living in.
    Nobody is 'naysaying'... I use the trails every day that I can... you've probably seen me whip past you more than once on TLC...

  5. #95

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    Quote Originally Posted by SpeakCantonese:
    He can. But he should be aware, that compared to England, they're a bit crap.



    Oh my God, I seriously give up... this must be the most stupid comment on the thread.



    Nobody is 'naysaying'... I use the trails every day that I can... you've probably seen me whip past you more than once on TLC...
    It really sounds like you've been here too long and it's time to go back... BTW, nice and better is a matter of perspective and not an absolute. Many of the days it rains here school are cancelled... Wow... I guess we have a very different definition of many, school is cancelled usually a handful of days at most in a school year out of over 100 days of rain. I guess Maths isn't your forte...



    If people are prepared to say you can easily access the Alps, you might as well say that the Himalayas are on our doorstep and there are few places on earth like it. I prefer hiking in Europe(definitely not England) but there's no shortage of amazing hiking fairly close with 3000m peaks in Taiwan and as Mat said, you can be running on trails(often with nice views) in minutes before or after work or even at lunch in HK or be on the water sailing, boarding or paddling. That is not something you can do in London. Same goes for cycling hills...

    As an outdoor enthusiast, I vastly prefer Hong Kong over London. Your opportunities are nicer on weekends in the UK in the summer but for 8 months of the year and on weekdays, it's no contest in my opinion.
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  6. #96

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    The hike in was on yesterday (done properly) involves a view point with views out over China, a number of rock pools and waterfalls you can spend hours exploring, some abandoned old houses which are quite interesting. There are almost no views of any kind of civilization (except in the far distance at the top) and yesterday (a weekday yes) we saw 2 other people in 5 hours. And finished in a seaside Village with great Thai food at cheap prices and buses to the nearest MTR.

    It's about as far away from my home as you can get yet took only about an hour to get there and back, at rush hour in both directions.

    Can you do that in London?

    Last edited by HK_Katherine; 12-05-2018 at 12:58 PM.

  7. #97

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    Quote Originally Posted by HK_Katherine:
    It's about as far away from my home as you can get yet took only about an hour to get there and back, at rush hour in both directions.
    Can you do that in London?

  8. #98

    I did want gently to correct the earlier poster who claimed that the British were the most populous of expats in Hong Kong: that is not true and I suspect it has not been true for a long time. Even if one sets aside Filipinos, Indonesians and Nepalese as not exactly being "expats" in the sense we seem to be using the term here, most lists I've seen do not even have the UK in the top-5. The United States is the biggest sender among Western nations.

    One would have no problem locating Brits, but, for better or worse, Americans are nearly twice as abundant, according to this: Why are Hong Kong’s expats still down in the dumps about living in the city? | South China Morning Post

    (It may be that those numbers do not include PRs or something: not sure. But I certainly do not find that Brits are the biggest non-indigenous group, by any means)

    You might want to read that article for everything that people are downbeat on. Contra that, my family has found HK very agreeable, and Central London definitely has a very serious pollution problem (caused by Diesel proliferation) to match anything I've seen in HK. I enjoy hiking in the Country Parks. I did not know how deprived I was by not being in the Alps until I read this thread. In our local CP, you can hike without sight or hearing of modern civilization, and there is beautiful little pond and brook in which one can soak one's feet. Some fairly grumpy monkeys, but there you do have something you will not see in the Alps, one assumes.

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  9. #99

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    @Londoner4057

    We were in London and Switzerland/DE before Hong Kong. We enjoy the outdoors and, ideally, spend most weekends outdoors. My two cents: you're right comparing Hong Kong with Europe is like comparing apples with oranges, and you know what the "apples" are like in London/EU, so why not come and find out what it's like here and get a contrast of scenery. We've hiked the London Loop and Vanguard Way, as well as in the Alps (though, like you know, trips to the Alps require holiday time and money from London). All are very lovely and nice. At the same time, the Macelohose Trail, Wilson Trail, and Lantau Trail (especially Fan Lau) are lovely, with lots of non-concrete sections and hours of hiking without any views of any development/city -- you can really feel lost in the vibrant green steep hillsides here (70% of HK land is countryside). It's also a good location for water sports, and you can go kayaking and see coral. Yes, some months of the year really suck with the hot humid weather and pollution, but London, too, has it's drawbacks, so come and experience another kind of drawback.

    This video is no exaggeration, and again, it won't take you more than an hour to get to this hiking location:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZVi20jnXfw

    Fyi, I was really surprised on a recent trip to Hoi An, we literally went door-to-door from the hotel to our home in 5 hours (including waiting 1.5 hours at the airport)! So this is something else nice about Hong Kong.

    All that said, after a few years, the drawbacks get tiring and it can easily feel like it's time for a change of scenery, but come and see what Hong Kong has to offer...

    (Ps -- I'm confused if I already posted at the beginning or not...hope I'm not repeating myself.)

    Last edited by Elegiaque; 14-05-2018 at 12:47 PM.
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