Here is a picture I took from the promenade near the conference hotel in Kowloon yesterday at lunch. In the distance is Hong Kong Island. If you look closely in the middle of the picture you can see a small orange object floating in the water. That is an old guy swimming. I was sitting on a bench, and he jogged by 4 or 5 times, then stripped down, put his clothes in a bag, and dove in. He was swimming almost as fast as I could walk, decent size waves. The amazing thing is he looked to be anywhere from 70 to 90 years old, probably tipped the scales at 110 pounds. I guess he does this everyday, as I saw him on a different day going by in the water.
Today (Saturday-I keep waking up at 3 AM no matter what I do) I am going on a tour of a drainage tunnel project, should be some interesting photos there.
Thanks for the memory.
He must be one tuff guy !
When there last the harbo(u)r was the colo(u)r of pea soup and almost the same
consistency too !
Cheers,
Derek
Swimmer...
Wow!! The sky is somewhat clear there!! 🙂
Hope the water is warm for that swimmer guy...otherwise, he's nuts! hehehe
Cant wait to see more!! Thanks for sharing. :angel:
Nice Picture,
interesting conference ?
Hope you send more pics and stories from the projects you will visit,
chr.
Po Shan Road Landslide
I had signed up for a tour of the Po Shan Drainage tunnels today-didn't know what it was, but it sounded interesting (and it was free). There were only three of us. We figured we would be heading inland to see some massive stormwater conveyance tunnels. But, we crossed under the bay to Hong Kong Island, and then began to ascend. Heading up the steep road I saw some amazing construction-many high rises perched on what looked to me like precarious sites. We finally pulled up to a big tower called the Po Shan Mansions.
There was a major landslide here in 1972 that killed 67 people. Here is a youtube video that we watched:
To fix the problem, they brought in a TBM, and drilled two horizontal tunnels. Then, from each of these they drilled a total of 172 sloped drainage pipes up into the rock above to try and reduce the groundwater level. At the end of the 300 meter tunnel they installed a seismograph because it would be so stale, away from traffic, etc.
To drill these, they first drilled one, then backed the TBM out into a turning area, then drilled the other. Here is a pdf I found that has a description of the project, maps begin on page 31. Really neat solution to the problem.
We went into these tunnels, and got a really neat tour. Each drain has a pressure meter attached. When the pressure gets high, they open a valve and drain some water out. They don't want to totally drain it, the area above would be too dry. So, it is a balance to keep it at the right level. The outside slope of the hill is about 35 degrees. Here are a few pics inside:
After that, I took the tram up to Victoria Peak. I'll post those pics next...
One question: what the heck is a feller from PA doing in Hong Kong?
Then again some might ask me the same question if I had taken on the project they wanted me to some time in the 80s when I worked at Unisys. If the Hong Kong-Shanghai Banking Corp. building is still there and operating as a bank you could stop in and see of my programming work still in action I suppose. They wanted me there for a 2 years stay. The project was such a fiasco from the start I said not only no but "hell no!".
Po Shan Road Landslide
John,
fascinating project,
and very well documented in the linked pdf, even the tree survey plan is in it.
have a great time!
chr.
Po Shan Road Landslide
Very interesting post! Thanks!
Have a great weekend! 🙂
> One question: what the heck is a feller from PA doing in Hong Kong?
>
He is getting some 'take out'. 🙂
