Sic Luceat Lux.

I really thought President of China Hu Jintao and I had an understanding. A rapport, if you will. He keeps the entire HK Convention Center to himself (a set of high-rise buildings about 9 square blocks), and I get to keep my hotel room. He doesn't bother me, I don't bother him.

But I was wrong. Tonight I couldn't get back into to my hotel for two hours after having spent an awesome day at Lantau Island observing the giant Buddha statue. I was tired and sweaty and I had my heavy-ass photo bag on my shoulders...Getting off the Wan Chai subway station I was already dreaming of getting into a cool dry room with a bottle or a can of something interesting and just laying down a bit...and then I saw this crap:



As I was traversing my usual path through the overpasses down to Harbour Road, it turned out that everything and everywhere is blocked by police. There were barricades, fences and cops. Harbour Road was cut in half by heavy police vehicles, like they do during riots. Apparently, there was some kind of demonstration or protest. As I was standing near the glass in the building connected to the overpass looking down at folks waving green glowsticks and chanting, I asked one dude what the gathering was about. He said the people were for democracy, and since the President is in the Convention Center, the show is for him. I managed to turn the corner from Fleming onto Harbor Road only to hit a final barricade and a categorical (but polite) "Sorry Sir, you can't pass here". From there, I could clearly see one of the English signs from the protest: "Stop prosecution of Falun Gong".

So for a while I just sat there on a sidewalk, with all my photo crap, a can of tea and a bag of chocolate, observing minor police action:



When I saw that police truck backing up to the entrance where the action was taking place, I thought it was a prisoner transport vehicle, "voronok". In addition, shit starting heating up as I could hear the first "Fuck you"s of the night. So I figured there's about to be some skull-breaking. But no dice, all went nice and quiet -- the truck turned out to be just that, a truck, into which they proceeded to load something from the barricaded area, God knows what. I got bored and left.

Ultimately though, I had to go back to up to Wan Chai station and circle back to the hotel from the other end of Harbour Road. The barricades and police started right at the hotel's door, but fortunately they let people in and out...

Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor at dusk, as seen from Morning Walk at Victoria Peak.