Kenneth Cole Entrance

 

Kenneth Cole's store front (above doors) in New York. 

A traditional street market in Hong Kong. Only a handful of these are still in existence. So in addition to the bargain items, they are also good for sight seeing. The photo is of 花園街 (Garden Street) in Mong Kok, which is much preferred by locals than the nearby 女人街 (Lady Street), as the latter place has become a tourist trap. The buildings at the side are worth mentioning too as they are also from a previous era. I don't know much about these buildings although there are probably some history behind them. The only fact I know is that most, if not all, of them are without elevators, so they are a lot cheaper (almost half) than newer units. And because of the fact that they're old, of course. Considering that Hong Kong's real estates are fairly expensive in most standards, these buildings are preserved because of demands from low income families. Nevertheless, the government has been very active in upgrading low income families to safer and cleaner buildings. There are countless government subsidised properties throughout Hong Kong for people in need. However, even with the many social assistance available, you're bound to run across a beggar or two in Hong Kong, just like any other metropolis of the world. But I have never once been approached by a panhandler in Hong Kong, which is completely opposite to what I experience here in Toronto. In Toronto, I've seen young, able bodied, and cleanly dressed "panhandlers" on the street of downtown Toronto. Most of them evidently don't look like they're in poverty, yet, they have the audacity to ask me for change. Everytime, I have to hold the urge to just tell them to "Get a job, pal!" as they're obviously exploiting the kindness of strangers. Noting that minimal wage here is about $7/hour and people have tendancy to leave at least a dollar or two, this is definitely a better "job" for these lazy people that have no moral. But, I digressed.

The Hope diamond, est. US$250 million. At the National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. The colour is suppose to be blue, but the camera lighting skewed it. You can read about its long and dramatic history from this link. The centre diamond is a natural blue stone around 45 carats, there are 16 white diamonds surrounding it with 45 in total for the whole necklace. From what I've read, the blue diamond is the rarest of all natural diamonds and this particular gem is the biggest of them all.

Speaking of diamonds. This company sells artificial diamonds of a different kind. They've been around for a few years and I've seen them on the news a couple of times. At first I was skeptical, but they seem legitimate and is actually doing well (seeing that they're still around after some time).

Took this picture back in July of this year. A clear sky. 

Same view as the previous post, but this time at dusk hour. Views like this are getting rarer these days as winter approaches. It's been cloudy often here at Toronto lately. 

I have moved! Here's a view from my balcony. A spectacular view overlooking Toronto downtown, isn't it?

I thought I might give Tokyo a break for a while as I still have many pictures from my recent trips. This one here is from Mong Kok, Hong Kong. A street-side-snack-seller. I was quite amazed by the sheer number of these places in HK. There weren't as many last time I've been to HK a couple years back. These days you're bound to run into them everywhere you go. The guy in the picture doesn't seem too busy. But pictures can be deceiving. This place is literally jam packed with people at the time. A second before the photo, he was serving customers with one hand, collecting money with the other, and taking orders from numerous customers. I was quite astounded to find that he actually stopped everything he was doing and posed for my picture without me asking (I originally wanted to capture the action). Either that or he was giving me the "look" and wanting me to move out of the way... I never did find out as the crowd grew to like 20 people by the time I'm done. So I thanked him hastily and moved along.