Sunday, April 5

Hong Kong Railway Museum

A patch of irregular shaped blue sky finally appeared after having a long week of gray clouds.  Po, Yan and I first decided we would go to Shek Tong Tsui, the old district, but we ended up going to the Railway Museum.

I made a detour to Kowloon Bay as I really wanted a Holga camera.  Beautiful Holga!  Unfortunately, the shop was closed owing to the public holiday.  Geez, I will get it tomorrow!

Po, her sister, Jill, Yan and I met in Kowloon Tong railway station and headed to Tai Po Market, where was… damn, cloudy.

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The museum was farther than we thought it was, thanks to the road signs we found our way easily.  There were already many people when we arrived, families with kids, professional photographers with their models (and of course with super pro cameras too), students and idlers like us :)

Those were controls for the trains.  The museum was located right next to the railway, it was cool to see the new trains passing by every once in a while.

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The “old” tickets (they are older than I am, haha) were interesting to look at because, first, they are so small (I think I’ve even used those when I was younger… but where?) and second, there were only 4 main train stations, Yau Ma Tei, Kowloon Tong, Tai Po (served as a temporary train station) and Luo Wu (near Shen Zhen).  Sometimes I wish I had collected those funny little things.  Well, I’ve been collecting postcards :)  You’re welcome to write me postcards, just ask for my address!

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A bit of the used Railway.  When I was very young, in China, I lived near a train station, from time to time, my friends and I wandered there and we walked on the tracks, aimlessly.  Now the train station is closed but I don’t think it’s allowed to walk on the railway anymore.

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It was a trolley for the workers to check on the trains.  I love tracks, they are not rusty though, surprisingly!  Do you love walking on the tracks too?

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The very beautiful training “Sir Alexander” (it was the first train named after a person - Sir Alexander Grantham, one of the Governors in Hong Kong) and it’s heart.

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Look at the parts of the train, I was totally captivated!  The trip to the museum was definitely worth it.  I thought it was small and plain, you know, nothing much to see, but hell no, it was so interesting and the trains were incredible!

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Here comes the full picture of the “Sir Alexander”!  It looks like a toy train in my opinion :p

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Here is another train… haha I think you know why i took this picture.  It looked just like the cartoon train :p  HAHA so cute!!!!

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Er, no need to explain what those are, yeah?

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Another train which was not as lucky as “Sir Alexander”, this one didn’t have a name.  The logo for KCR Railway was worth noting.  The logo consist of 2 Chinese number “9” (九).  It was very traditional.  Now it’s just KCR, very boring and predictable (if you google KCRC you’ll see).

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Checking out the old trains was another nice experience.

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These were the first class seats.  The seats were really comfortable :p  The use of blue and orange colours were really smart.  There was an ad stuck on the wall too, damn capitalism!

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Let’s take a look at those beautifully coloured signs… the left one was written from right to left - very traditional; the right one… haha was so wrong!  Not only the Chinese writing was wrong!!!!!

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An aisle and the luggage compartment separated the first class from the second.  Again, it was orange and blue (alluring and neat)!

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Hah! Blue (jeans) and orange (seats)!  The fans on the ceiling were so “elegant” - I am not so sure if it’s the right word to describe them.  I pulled down a glass window, it really was heavy - I couldn’t pull it up, sorry!

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The stain was old!

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This museum really was lovely despite its size!

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Saw this salon on our way to the train station, aw, it was so classic! You don’t see such a thing exist in the city anymore!