It's a bit of a contradiction, Hong Kong. I see articles and pictures all over the media about rooftopping out here. Every other week there's a new omg shock horror sickening selfie article in a paper or a new video online somewhere, but honestly there's so many roofs to go at out here that it becomes. The best way I've found to explain it to people is that it's a very binary experience.
There's no solving problems or working out a route through a building, broadly speaking it comes down to the roof door being unlocked or not. That is being a little simplistic of course, but as long as you're happy to ignore the cameras and assume that no one will investigate the tripping of the reed switch that most buildings seem to have then that's really what it boils down to.
The other side of that coin is that the buildings in Central, which have borne the brunt of the instagram crew are nigh on impossible. I've seen everything from PIRs, cameras and magnetic locks to security guards stationed in stairwells. Hopefully I'll be able to bring you all some results from these in the future though, I'm still trying.
Admittedly some times you can be more confident than others..
Were I Ukrainian, Russian or possibly Canadian, then there would no doubt be a pair of shoes belonging to whoever had sponsored me for this trip in the frame above. As I've said before though, that's not about to happen.
When I first arrived here I was lucky to get half a day off, so I was concentrating on the buildings that a walked past most days. The density of skyscrapers out here still meant that I'd often find myself on top of half a dozen roofs over the course of walking the ten minutes it takes to get home from work.
I should say that I've pretty much disregarded anything less than 30 floors as not being worth bothering with, there's more than enough to keep busy with.
I've started now aiming for the roofs with anything to mark them out as different, be that a feature of some kind or maybe one of the famous neon signs that top most of the buildings that face the harbour side.
To the right of the shot above is a building called the Times Tower, which has a huge Epson advert balanced on top of it.
This one is a Panasonic advert with a guest appearance by Keitei
This I don't even know the name of but I've been up twice now, once alone and once with FB.
I've found time to pop up a few cranes also, happily it seems that locking these isn't a thing here yet. Long may it stay that way too..
There's no solving problems or working out a route through a building, broadly speaking it comes down to the roof door being unlocked or not. That is being a little simplistic of course, but as long as you're happy to ignore the cameras and assume that no one will investigate the tripping of the reed switch that most buildings seem to have then that's really what it boils down to.
The other side of that coin is that the buildings in Central, which have borne the brunt of the instagram crew are nigh on impossible. I've seen everything from PIRs, cameras and magnetic locks to security guards stationed in stairwells. Hopefully I'll be able to bring you all some results from these in the future though, I'm still trying.
Admittedly some times you can be more confident than others..
Were I Ukrainian, Russian or possibly Canadian, then there would no doubt be a pair of shoes belonging to whoever had sponsored me for this trip in the frame above. As I've said before though, that's not about to happen.
When I first arrived here I was lucky to get half a day off, so I was concentrating on the buildings that a walked past most days. The density of skyscrapers out here still meant that I'd often find myself on top of half a dozen roofs over the course of walking the ten minutes it takes to get home from work.
I should say that I've pretty much disregarded anything less than 30 floors as not being worth bothering with, there's more than enough to keep busy with.
I've started now aiming for the roofs with anything to mark them out as different, be that a feature of some kind or maybe one of the famous neon signs that top most of the buildings that face the harbour side.
To the right of the shot above is a building called the Times Tower, which has a huge Epson advert balanced on top of it.
This one is a Panasonic advert with a guest appearance by Keitei
This I don't even know the name of but I've been up twice now, once alone and once with FB.
I've found time to pop up a few cranes also, happily it seems that locking these isn't a thing here yet. Long may it stay that way too..