Location
In the back of my mind, I sometimes find myself thinking that friends and family back home would never believe stuff about life over here in Hong Kong. I could use hundreds or even thousands of words, but that would not do it justice, so instead I have decided to give you a video tour of my commute into town. Location is very important for people here in Hong Kong. The price you pay for an apartment takes into account its location and how far it is from public transportation like the MTR (HK subway). My apartment is about 10 minutes walking distance from the Shatin, MTR, but that was all pedestrian path. It is not convenient for cars to get to. Another thing that is important in Hong Kong is security. Most apartments in both China and Hong Kong come with security guards. Generally speaking, like it or not you will see and be seen by a security guard or a security camera every time you go out or come back in to your apartment. This still sometimes bothers me.
Security
Thankfully, I have found some exceptions. For example, neither village houses, nor my current apartment at Ching Yeung House has security guard(s). Ching Yeung House does have a video camera surveillance system though. Also we do have an apartment manager who keeps an eye on things, but that’s different than a security guard.
I have lived in some unique places in Hong Kong and China. Ching Yeung House is no exception. It’s my first time to live in a ground floor, 2 story apartment in Hong Kong. I love the high ceiling in my living room. The spacious front patio is also nice.
Make What You Have Work
So I could try to use words to describe the apartments setting and how you walk from it to the New Town Shopping plaza and MTR station, but instead I decided it would be more meaningful to use a video.
This video is only about 3 minutes so it is a time lapse video. Probably the simplest way to do a time lapse video and still have good quality is to use a Go Pro. I don’t own a GoPro, and I wanted to use a regular camera to do it so I did. Of course there are different ways to go about it. I decided to use the Panasonic GH4 with its VBR feature to shoot at a shutter speed of 2 shoots per second for a 24 fps timeline. All of this was done in camera. It effectively gave me a speed increase of 1200 percent. The key to making it work was smoothness. I used a Crane gimbal and a dual handle grip, but the footage still looked a bit shaky afterwards. So I needed to use post image stabilization as well. I think the final results came out pretty well, not perfect but not bad either. Take a look and you will get a better idea of where I live and the surroundings. Unfortunately, I couldn’t use my camera in the mall or around City Hall so I had to use materials found online for those sections. Anyway enjoy.
