Fourth day - Ma Shi Chau, Sai Kung High Island Geo Park

Our itinerary for today would begin with a trek along the Ma Shi Chau Nature Trail, a trail lining the coastline of Ma Shi Chau, an island linked to the Sai Kung peninsula of Hong Kong by a coastal feature called a tombolo, followed by a visit to the picturesque High Island Reservoir - a Geopark renowned for its magnificent hexagonal columns of rhyolitic rock formed from past volcanic eruptions in Hong Kong.

As our morning began with a rocky terrain trail at the interestingly named 'Ma Shi Chau' (direct translation: horse excrement island- I will elaborate more on this later), we were greeted with a blast from the past when we saw the quaint little fishing village that welcomed us at the start of our trek. Guided by our knowledgeable and witty Geopark guide, affectionately known as Uncle Sam, our lungs were injected with fresh air (not something you'll breathe in everyday Singapore) as we embarked on our hike up a hill that we had to cross before arriving at Ma Shi Chau.

Lining the hillside were graves of a traditional cemetery, and Uncle Sam generously took the opportunity to enlighten us on the traditions and customs of the people there as well as how the islands were named. Basically, in the case of Ma Shi Chau, it all began with a mountain that the first settlers thought looked like a horse saddle and thus, based on its naming as "Horse Saddle mountain", a trend of naming the landmarks based on horses was created; Ma Shi Chau interestingly was thought to look like horse excrement in the channel. We also learnt that a custom known as "twice burial" was often practiced where the body of a deceased will be dug up after an initial burial after some time before being cremated.

After passing by tens of graves and scaling hundreds of steps- we finally reached our first location of a tombolo. It was really refreshing and enlightening to finally see our textbooks come to live! As the Hong Kong government wanted to preserve the tombolo in the event of a typhoon, the reinforcements and coastal management we have tediously memorized came alive to us - we saw how they used salt water resistant vegetation and rocks to reinforce the tombolo, where the roots of the vegetation would stabilize the tombolo and the rocks will allow deposition to continue occurring. The idea of using salt resistant plants also made sense in the saltwater/coastal environment, and through this, we leant about the importance of contextualisation and understanding the knowledge rather than just memorizing off the textbook.

Using the tombolo as our bridge, we arrived on Ma Shi Chau. It felt incredibly surreal to be standing on rocks millions and millions of years old, making it almost impossible to imagine the scale of things and these majestic processes of earth movement. 

According to Uncle Sam, Ma Shi Chau is largely of sedimentary origin, comprising mainly of siltstone, mudstone and sandstone with some intrusions of solidified magma as well as sedimentary rocks that had undergone heat and pressure, resulting in the presence of metamorphic rock such as quartzite. 

What struck us the most was the extremely clear joints and bedding planes inscribed on the rocks due to lithification as well as tensional forces from plate movement. At one point, we were even able to see an intrusion of solidified magma between two bands of sedimentary rock and it was incredibly interesting to see these two different types rocks juxtaposed next to each other, one about a 100 million years older than the other, according to Uncle Sam.

As we trekked along the nature trail, we were able to feel and even scratch at the different rocks before our eyes. For example, mudstone, being comprised of mainly mud, allowed us to leave marks on these rocks using our fingernails. It really changed our perspectives of rocks- we'll no longer be able to view them as just meaningless objects we come across with everyday but as the diverse by products of the earth, each having its own story to tell. 

During this trek,we were also able to differentiate the different types of rocks confidently after seeing them in the flesh. We were able to tell apart the minerals that make up Granite; we could easily identify quartz veins found within granite and quartzite; we also learnt that weathering processes all take place together, but depending on the environment and mineral composition, one process might be more dominant than others. What made our little adventure all the more exciting was knowing that these rocks were in their original form- never tainted by man but only the forces of nature such as coastal erosion and weathering processes acting upon them . It was almost like a buffet of lithosphere spread before our very eyes! The various forms of weathering finally had so much meaning, it was like living in our lecture notes seeing all the processes in the flesh; and at that point, we finally could understand how amazing physical geography was as we got to experience it and see it first hand for ourselves. 

Following that, we visited the High Island Reservoir/Dam area, one of Hong Kong's most popular geological sites, located in New Territories. Built in the late 1970s, the High Island Reservoir, the largest reservoir in Hong Kong, was created by damming the two ends of a narrow sea channel, of which the Eastern side overlooked the Pacific ocean. For the construction of the dam, not only did we learn that villagers were being shifted to the Downtowns of Hong Kong, submerging half of the villages there, it also revealed the magnificent volcanic rock site of rhyolitic hexagonal columns of rock. 

When we arrived at the destination, we were intrigued by this huge structure known as a “Dolosse”. These dolosses were placed near the edge of the protective dam (yes, a dam was constructed in front of the main Eastern Dam for protection purposes) as a mean to protect the protective dam and main Eastern Dam (this dam overlooks the Pacific Ocean) from the impacts from disastrous typhoons during the typhoon season. Just this alone allowed us to appreciate how hydrology, coastal processes and atmospheric processes were interlinked with one another. 

At the beginning of the trail, we saw two different types of rocks – granite, which is a type of intrusive igneous rock as well as rhyolite, an extrusive igneous rock. The granitic rocks displayed were transported and placed there manually. Granite is a hard, coarse grained rock, primarily consisting of feldspar (which is pinkish/brownish in colour), mica (which is black) and quartz (which is white and glassy). It obtains its coarse-grained texture due to the slow process of solidification and crystallisation of magma beneath the earth's surface (hence its classification intrusive igneous rock). 

On the other hand, rhyolite, its counterpart (they comprise of similar minerals) is fine-grained due to rapid cooling of rhyolitic magma on the surface of the earth (hence its classification as extrusive igneous rock). Being able to touch and see granite and rhyolite allowed us to better comprehend the properties of these rocks.

Proceeding on, we spotted a domical, isolated island detached from the High Island, due to coastal erosional processes. Part of the hill (known as Flower Mountain) underwent erosion and a sea cave developed over time. When the cave wore through the headland, an arch developed. Overtime, a stack formed when the connecting part of the arch was eroded by hydraulic action and weathering which then gave rise to the stack we saw before our eyes. A stack is basically an isolated island/pillar/rock formation. This stack is also known as Po Pin Chau. The highlight of High Island Geopark was the hexagonal columnar joints, standing as high as 30 metres. 

The High Island Formation is said to have formed inside a huge caldera following a catastrophic volcanic eruption some 140 million years ago. When the lava flowed rapidly into this depression, it created a semi-enclosed environment which was beneficial to slow cooling. When the lava cooled down slowly, it gradually developed contraction joints. The joints extended perpendicularly downwards during cooling of the rock. The contraction of the cooling rock goes towards the centre to form high hexagonal columns. 

All in all, it was an enlightening and breathtaking trip, which could never have been possible if we were in Singapore. Tomorrow, we will be visiting the Housing Authorities, the Coca Cola bottling plant, as well as the HK Monetary authorities. So stay tuned for more updates!

Third day - Singapore International School, St Mary's Home for the Aged

Today is the day! Our presentation day! We have spent alot of time prior and during the trip to prepare for this presentation. 7 of us presented on Market Failure in the Consumption of Private Cars and Policies implemented by the Singapore government while the other 6 students presented on Market Failure in Housing Market in Singapore and the Policies. 

We were initially very nervous about this sharing as we will be presenting to our buddies from SIS.  However, we also look forward to this session as our buddies will also be sharing about the same topic in the context of Hong Kong.

We found out that the price of houses in Hong Kong is surprising more expensive than the housing prices in Singapore. For example, a 3 room HDB flat costs approximately SGD$455,000 in Singapore while a similar house would cost SGD$1 million in Hong Kong. We also learnt that houses in Hong Kong are expensive as people usually buy them as an investment and would sell these houses at a significantly higher price. Thus, the housing sector in Hong Kong still has much improvements to be made, in order to cater to the needs of more people so that they will be able to afford a house. 

After the presentation, we had a question and answer session whereby we asked each other and clarified the policies that we were unsure of. From that, we learnt that Hong Kong also has stamp duty imposed on foreign buyers just like Singapore. This stamp duty of 10% adds as a disincentive to investors to buy property in Hong Kong as it reduces their profits when they sell it in the short run. The price they sell has to be more than 10% higher than the price when they first purchase the unit in order to make an economic profit. However, this is unlikely to happen in the SR as property usually takes time to appreciate in value as a result of rise in demand due to various factors such as more amenities built around it. Hence, this aims to make it less attractive for investors to buy property in Hong Kong thus reducing the demand from this group of consumers. Holding other factors constant, price might fall or at least remains stable, hence preventing property prices from escalating so that more locals can afford to buy a house. This is one of the few measures implemented by the Hong Kong government to cool the property market in Hong Kong. We also learnt that this measure is mainly targeting at investors from mainland China as they form the largest group of "foreign buyers".

From the sharing on policies to reduce consumption of private cars due to presence of negative externalities, we observed a number of similarities between the 2 cities. For example, although Hong Kong does not have ERP to reduce or divert traffic, it has 3 underwater tunnels that link Hong Kong island to Kowloon with  differing toll charges. Drivers who have inelastic demand to use the road would usually take the Eastern Harbour-Crossing tunnel or Western Harbour-Crossing tunnel (operates by private firms) due to smoother traffic instead of the Cross-Harbour tunnel (operates by the government) which is usually congested as the charges for the latter is 10times cheaper.

During the Q&A session, several questions were raised by students from both schools to seek clarification on the points presented. These include why there is a fee differences between Cross-Harbour Tunnel and Eastern and Western Cross-Harbour Tunnels. We learnt that the last 2 Tunnels were constructed and operate by private firms under the Build-Operate-Transfer model proposed by the government. It is a 30 year franchise, afterwhich the license will expires and has to return to the government. During this 30 years, the private firms are allowed to earn up to 10% profits. This explains why the charge is 10times higher than the Cross-Harbour Tunnel operates by the government.

Miss Ekta, the Economics tutor at SIS commented that she finds the public transport system in Hong Kong much efficient than that in Singapore. She highlighted the transfer time taken as one of the key differences between the 2 systems. Due to time constraint, we couldn't clarify further but it certainly leaves us thinking how we could probably learn from Hong Kong and how the degree of competition in the transport system will affect the degree of efficiency. This has also given us more insight on the different policies implemented in both countries.

After the presentation, we adjourned to St Mary’s Home for the Aged for our CIP. St Mary’s Home for the Aged is a shelter for homeless and poor income elderly. This home was founded by t. Jeanne Jugan who was the mother foundress for the Little Sisters of the Poor. In Hong Kong, there is only one home available and the homes are also found in other countries such as the US and Singapore. 

The Little Sisters provide residents with a place where meals are shared in communion: Joys are multiplied and sorrows are divided: a place where the love of a human heart moves freely from one to another. Faced with the insecurity of the Elderly Poor, Little Sisters wish to give them assurance that they will be cared for with the competence and accompanied to the end.

While visiting St Mary’s Home for the Aged, we learnt more about the home and also help out by sweeping the fallen leaves on the walkway. Though it was just a few hours visit, we experienced and learnt lots of things. Teamwork is important as everyone has a part to play in clearing away the leaves. Sweeping the leaves on the walkway might seem like a minor gesture to us, but to the elderly, it is actually an act of kindness which transcends beyond words. We do not have to do great thing to help the elderly, little things that we do can also make a difference in their lives. For instance, we do not have to donate huge sum of money to the home to be considered as helping them, we can also help them in other ways such as spending time with them and cleaning the home. As we were interacting with some of the elderly at the home, they expressed their gratitude towards us and welcomed us warmly to the home. 

By volunteering our time at the home alongside with our Hong Kong buddies from the Singapore International School, we really felt that it was an enriching and rewarding experience. As the third day comes to a close, we look forward to going to Ma Shi Chau and Sai Kung High Island Geo Park Tour in order to see the physical geography lithospheric processes at work. 

Second day - Singapore International School, URA, Bus Tour in Mong Kok and Tsim Sha Tsui, Symphony of Lights

On the second day of our Hong Kong trip, we had the opportunity to visit the Singapore International School Hong Kong (SISHK). They are currently under the International Baccalaureate Programme. When we arrived to SIS, we were paired up with our buddies - local and foreign students who are studying in SIS and were given the opportunity to attend their lessons. 

During these lesson observations, we discovered many different aspects between their lesson structure and the ones we have in Singapore. For example, the period of each lesson lasts for an hour 10 mins, classes are small, approximately 13-15 students per class, and students are extremely participative in both class, group or individual activities. These factors allows students sufficient time to plan, discuss and even present their work, and the small class size makes presentations less nerve-wrecking and the students tend to be very bonded. These aspects also allow them to apply themselves, and learning from their mistakes along the way. Hence this provides a cohesive approach to the learning experience of students, allowing them to develop skills not simply to apply in examinations but in their own lives.

Students also had definitive qualities that we feel that Singaporean students could learn from. Firstly, SIS students were very expressive and vocal in their opinions and viewpoints which may provide various perspectives from a seeningly one-sided viewpoint. It can be seen that this culture of self-expressiveness was developed with the help of their tutors, where their open mindedness and flexibility of lessons inculcated this valuable quality into their students. Furthermore, this made students to more eager to learn as they learn because they want to know instead of being forced to know. This would be applicable to many parts of our lives where would start to think critically in problems that we would face. The students are also very time-conscious, and would report to their classes, not on time, but 5 mins before lesson starts, and this served as an important reminder to be punctual for our lessons. In addition to their comprehensive learning structure, the environment of SIS was very fun and welcoming which made many of us feel at home. This caused us to be able to interact with our buddies much more openly and engage better in classes we have participated. 

We also had the opportunity to sit into an Economics tutorial conducted by Ms Ekta, a DP 1 (equivalent to JC1) tutor. She went through concepts on subsidies as well as its effects on the different stakeholders. We got to participate in the class discussion and learnt much from the interactions with the SIS students.

Overall, this experience made us more open minded on various learning methods undertaken by different educational instituitions. We can also undertake certain pointers of our engagement and attitude towards learning that would allow us to learn better and achieve more.

Following our visit to SIS, we embarked on a learning journey to the Hong Kong Urban Renewal Authority (URA), and this visit was indeed an eye-opener to how the urban landscape of Hong Kong evolved from the past to the present, including aspects of housing and living conditions, as well as heritage preservation,  which is highly relevant to our topic of Urban Issues and Challenges in Human Geography.

This visit served to deepen our understanding of the role of the URA in Hong Kong urban landscape as well as various resulting impacts and responses. From the reading of news articles, as well as readings issued to us prior to the trip about the "cage houses", which are basically living spaces that has been partitioned by wire mesh within an apartment in Hong Kong, we were provided with prior knowledge about these squalid attempts at 'housing' the large population size of Hong Kong with limited land area. However, nothing beats seeing the actual "cage houses" that were retrieved when URA cleared out old housing blocks for redevelopment.

One may say that it was close to unlivable conditions, and we were told that these inhabitants not only had to face high temperatures due to the cramped conditions with little ventilation, the insanitary conditions was detrimental to the health of the inhabitants.

During the visit, we also had the opportunity to walk through an interactive gallery of the projects undertaken by URA over the years. Our guide, Niel, was enthusiastic and knowledgable in sharing with us his personal experiences in the process of redeveloping an area suffering urban decay. For instance, we were informed there were more than 4000 buildings in Hong Kong that were more than 50 years old and faced deterioration. Although these sites were often considered for renewal, the limited funding does not currently allow all these buildings to undergo restoration. 

We also learnt that each project could last between 6-8 years, and some challenges they faced included the difficulty in persuading the old tenants to relocate. We learnt that in 2011, URA adopted a new approach to urban renewal to include the involvement of all stakeholders - "People First, District-based and Public Participatory Approach to Urban Renewal". For example, the largest project URA will and is currently working on would be the renewal of Kwun Tong Town Centre, where there will be extensive greening for sustainability as well as some preservation of local characteristics through the conservation Kai-fong style street shops. However, this left us wondering what would happen to the old tenants if they had to move out during the renewal phase. Part of our inquiry was addressed when we learnt that tenants will be given priority on the waiting list for housing, and will be given a sum of money of approximately HK$7000. 

Additionally other policies like the 'flat for flat' scheme which allows the previous tenants to purchase the re-build apartments. While it was clear that such projects would give these tenants a better opportunity to acquire a new place live in, this set us thinking as we could foresee many problems arising as a result, for example, the new apartments being too costly- particularly as evident that the previous tenants being obviously too poor to afford the new houses, the payout is too little; when they revamp the area, as well as possible relocation to areas that is inconvenient for daily commuting to work. As such, it left us wondering if the well-being of the poor was holistically considered.
But hey! To paraphrase what Ms Huang said you can't have the best of both worlds- it's just choosing what is best with the least detrimental effects; and the URA is doing the best they can. However due to time constraints, all our queries weren't answered and there were some gaps in the knowledge that we were presented with. But, I am definitely sure the visit has inspired us to read more about the issues and maybe someday do something about it! 

The last place of visit for the day was Victoria Harbour where we took a tour of the area on a ferry, one of the several modes of transportation in Hong Kong. Victoria Harbour is one of the most well-known places of visited in Hong Kong. Victoria Harbour is also the location of the Symphony of Lights, an initiative by the Hong Kong Tourism Board. This nightly spectacle has been acknowledged as the world's "largest permanent Light and Sound show" by Guinness World Record. It combines interactive lights of 45 key buildings on both Hong Kong Island and Kowloon with musical effects to showcase the vibrancy and glamorous night vista of Victoria Harbour. The Symphony of Lights is not just a way to exhibit Hong Kong’s affluence and magnificent cityscape, it also highlights the city’s lively spirit and recognizable diversity. We understood from our local guide that the participating buildings including International Finance Centre 1 (IFC1), IFC2 and Central Plaza, some of the tallest and most prominent buildings in the area were not chosen by the Tourism Board; rather, these commercial buildings volunteered to participate. As such, the lights and laser projection infrastructure were fully paid for by the owners of the buildings themselves and these lights and laser projections lit up the city skyline with publicity information as well as various light decorations showcasing festive designs in line with the upcoming Christmas Season.

While admiring the beautiful sight in front of us, we realized the relevance of Economics theory to what we see.  For instance,  the Symphony of Lights can be viewed as a source of market failure: positive externality. The private benefit of this show is that the companies are able to publicise themselves through their cosmopolitan and avant garde lightings with their brand names on it. This would allow them to advertise their own brand names and attract investors into Hong Kong to invest in their companies, generating foreign direct investment. The external benefit will be the growth of businesses around the area such as F&B outlets and retail and services at Victoria Harbour as tourists attracted to the area to enjoy the scenic landscape of Hong Kong showcased by this nightly event.

With regards to geography, we drew relevance to urban imaging where the Symphony of Lights could be viewed as a government initiative to promote Hong Kong as a 24-hour city, or a "city which does not sleep", and this serves to create an image and identity of Hong Kong as a city that is vibrant and dynamic, at the same time investment-worthy due to its strategic location, world-class infrastructure and presence of prominent transnational corporations. This is known as the signaling effect where these TNCs 'endorse' the city as stable, thus increasing investor confidence.   

We look forward to our third day in Hong Kong, where we will be sharing about Singapore policies on public housing and private car consumption with our Hong Kong counterparts, as well as do our part of the community by helping at St Mary's Home for the Aged.

First day - Tsueng Kwan O, Kwa Wan, BreadTalk, History Museum

We all gathered at Changi Airport Terminal 1 on 17th November, after which, we took a 4-hour morning flight and reached Hong Kong at 6 am. Then, we took a bus to the Tsuen Kwan Ou public housing, the first of our many places of visit, to experience first-hand the infrastructural and social aspects of public housing in Hong Kong. At Tsuen Kwan Ou, we visited one of the local residents in the estate, who very graciously welcomed us to her house. There, we learnt a lot about the public housing in Hong Kong.

Tsuen Kwan Ou public housing

In Hong Kong, different public housing estates are given special names such as the one in the picture above. This is a unique characteristic that private houses, on the other hand, do not have. As we were walking up to her rental apartment, we noticed that the public building was relatively older as compared to most of our houses in Singapore. It was built in 1996! From our interaction with the local resident, we learnt that her 400 square foot apartment is occupirred by her family of 4 and would cost her a hefty price of about HK$2,300,000 (S$400,000) if she were to purchase it. Moreover, there are certain restrictions imposed upon occupants of public housing as the owners required to return the apartment to its original state when they move out. This means that any changes to the house after it undergoes renovation by the owners are supposed to be undone owners are supposed to return the flat to the government at its original state even after renovation. If people wish to move into a larger flat, they would have to wait for 3-4 years before getting the approval by the government.

However, unlike public housing, the private housing is more costly of at HK$3mil which is S$500,000 which is of 800 square feet. There is no restriction on the number of people living in a house. Lesser people have more public housing than a private housing as the population is increasing. With lesser land area, there would be limited space to build larger homes due to the unlimited demand and limited supply. Furthermore, there is a limit set on the space area that a developer can build and this limit also results in the number of storeys that they can build. For the private housing that we have visited, it has 4 rooms as compared to the 2-room public housing flat. This private housing not only have more space but they are also easy for one to travel as it has a MTR (MRT) nearby. Furthermore, it has a better environment for people to exercise such as the hills nearby.

Moreover, through our visit to the public and private housing, we have realised that both the environment and amenities available is in a better condition in the public housing as compared to the private housing for example, the presence of playgrounds and open spaces for community activities. Hence, we would want to enquire if these aspects serve as an incentive for the more people to purchase public housing which we would like to ask the Housing authority on Friday (Day 5).

Following that, we proceeded to BreadTalk, we had the opportunity to interview Mr Jack Yu, a store manager of BreadTalk regarding how Breadtalk functions in Hong Kong. He gave us many opportunities to ask many questions. Through this interview, we have learnt that BreadTalk has been established for 8 years in Hong Kong. BreadTalk has been very competitive for the past few years due to competition faced locally, Japan and Taiwan. BreadTalk, a Singapore-based company has expanded to Hong Kong and there are now 11 BreadTalk retail outlets operating in Hong Kong.

BreadTalk design their bread differently to cater to the people in Hong Kong. In order to maintain their competitive edge, in addition to the constant influx of new designs periodically from Singapore, Breadtalk HK also carries out R&D to come up with more flavors to cater to the demand of the locals to suit their tastes and preferences. However, these new designs from the HK R&D department has to be approved by Singapore (Headquaters) before they are able to carry out the production of these new goods. This helps to show the linkage of both the HQ and its subsidiary firms that are the Breadtalk branches in HK and their functions for the production of the good. Hence, this has shown the specialization of the production systems as the actual R&D is located only in Singapore. Hence, Breadtalk is able to save cost on R&D and as such reap economies of scale, leading to greater profits for the firm, which is reflected in the concepts pertaining to Economics’ demand and supply theory as well as in Human geography, the spatial organization of a Transnational Corporation. In the face of competition from other bakeries in Hong Kong such as A1, Pannish and Maxim, we learnt that Breadtalk engages mainly on non-price competition, particularly on quality of products and customer service. Breadtalk places great emphasis on the training and skills of its chefs and the quality of its ingredients. Breadtalk will send their Masterchefs from Singapore to train the chefs in Hong Kong whenever a new flavour is introduced. In order to enjoy greater economies of scale (EOS), all R&D is concentrated in headquarter in Singapore. With over 400 outlets internationally, the cost to support the R&D centre in Singapore is spread across a large output hence reducing the unit cost of production.  As cost of rental is very high in Hong Kong, Breadtalk has to strategize ways to reduce cost of production further. Although we learnt that theoretically, specialisation of labour enables each staff to be very good at their jobscope and hence rises productivity and reduces unit cost of production, we also realised that within a small outlet, there is little need to specialise. Hence, Breadtalk do away with specialisation of labour for certain jobscope and require staff to multi-task. Frontline staff are expected to do cashiering, cleaning and displaying while chefs generally only need to concentrate on baking. This reduces the need to hire 1 frontline staff just for cashiering and another just cleaning and a 3rd person just for displaying. Hence, this helps to lower cost of production. In fact, we noticed that chef does help in the displaying of the bread when the frontline staff is occupied with customer.

We also learnt that Breadtalk has future plans to expand its market throughout Hong Kong, targeting an addition of 5 more branches. We inquired about how they choose their location, and we learnt that human traffic and rental were the main influential factors. To attract more patrons, they also employ several advertising methods such as magazines, YouTube, newspapers and MTR to appeal to more consumers. Of course these were not the only strategies – freshness and quality control were of utmost importance and we saw how flexible production in Human Geography came to life – they produced bread according to customers’ demand to ensure freshness of production. But this required the responsiveness of the outlet manager, floor staff and chefs to produce accordingly. The multiple tasks of the workers were also clearly reflected in the roles that they had to play, for example how the chefs had to learn new designs of bread periodically, as well as how the store manager had to oversee the functioning of the store in multiple aspects –reflecting in the increasing dominance of and demand for multi-skilled workers as we have learnt as a characteristic of flexible production under human geography.

Our last place of visit for the day was the History museum of Hong Kong. It was an eye-opener for us as we learnt about both and geographical and economic aspects of Hong Kong. For example, high Island was formed due to rising magma. After the magma solidified, it started to harden, forming rhyolitic rock. We also got to view samples of various volcanic and sedimentary rocks. However, these are secondhand information and we hope to learn more about the geological aspects of Hong Kong during our visit to High Island and Ma Shi Chau (Day 4) Moving on, we learnt about the different cultural practices of Hong Kong. For instance, The Hoklos, a denomination of people living in Hong Kong. When a bride gets married, all the married relatives of the bride would do a dragon boat dance for her whereby they would row a dragon boat! The Seven Sisters Festival (Qiqiao) is also celebrated in Hong Kong. The Seven Sisters Festival is a variation of Valentine’s day.

We also learnt that Hong Kong also started out as a fishing industry, similar to Singapore whereby people has fished for a living, This humble fishing village eventually morphed into the metropolitan Hong Kong that we now know. Hong Kong, like Singapore, was also colonized by the British before. To end off, this trip to the museum served as an important prelude to the following days of the trip as it gave us insight with regards not only the physical geography aspect of Hong Kong, but also its colonial past (for example, it was evident in the presence of colonial buildings along the streets) as well as and how her trade and economy flourished to the current day global city.

   

That’s all for day 1 of our trip! Stay tuned for more fun updates!