Helena Lee:     I am now at the airport, waiting for boarding to Toronto.

Before I left Hong Kong, I want to see the glittering Christmas lightings in Hong Kong.  So I went out to Nathan Road in Tsim Sha Tsui to check it out. To my surprise, there is no Christmas lightings in Nathan Road. I then took the Star Ferry and crossed the Harbour to Hong Kong Island. Again, there were very little lightings around the harbour. Alas, Hong Kong is not glittering anymore.

I don't know whether it has something time do with Occupy Central. It's also disgusting to see the clean-up Mong Kok scenes unfolded on TVs screen last night. I am glad that I am now going home. But my heart is with my family and the people of Hong Kong. I will remember them in my prayer.

Stella Tse:       Hi Helena, have a safe flight home, will see you soon.  

Metis Hon:      You must be home now. I share your sentiment about HK, I'm just visiting there for the sake of my family and friends.

KT Lai:           There are a lot every year at the Tsim Sha Tsui East with no exception this year.

Winnie:           你是否離港太久遺忘了，觀賞香港的聖誕燈飾應該在尖東區而不是彌敦道。近年更增加廣東道一帶至海運大厦，每年都吸引数拾萬人前往觀看，今年也不例外。現在已不流行在外牆安裝燈飾了，新型的商場都會把聖誕裝置放在室內來吸引遊人進內參觀消費而不祇是在街外溜覽，每個商場都有一個獨特的主题，像在述說一個童話故事，你可進入各大商場的網站暸解。

香港仍然是一個燦放光芒的地方，現在祇是暫時蒙塵，希望很快便能重現光明。

Peter Wu:        Makes perfect sense to have the lightings inside instead of outside.

If I were the mall owner/manager, I will do exactly the same. Once they are inside, chances are they will spend some money, even for a cup of coffee, or snacks.

Some shopping malls in Kiwiland or for that matter in the States, Canada or elsewhere, are so huge that people can shop till they drop.

But before they drop, they need some refreshments and the food court does exactly that – refresh, recharge and resume their shopping.

I also heard that some malls are designed in such a way to make the exits not readily apparent, to stop shoppers from getting out.

One other trick is to provide comfy seating inside the mall to stop shoppers from getting out. The longer they linger, the higher the chances of their spending some money.

Cunning marketing trick? You decide.

Tim Fook:       In the bus in HK side, I looked across Tsimshatsui East and found that lighting on the building didn’t look attractive. Anne regretted that we don’t have time to view the inhouse X’mas lights in the ocena Terminal.

By chance, I and Anne were in the Landmark ,Central in two weekends. The lights on 22nd is not fully prepared and the view looks different on 28 Nov. It may be too early for Helena to view the lights. All photos were taken at about 9:00 p.m. after dinner with colleagues and friends.

Peter Wu:        I would like to know why people don’t bother with decorating the water-front buildings with decorative lights?

There was a time when it was the thing to do, it was the thing for people to look forward to and it also became an unwritten competition among building owners, and major corporates to outdo one another with bigger, brighter and more decorative lights? 

Because of these lightings, it attracted a vast number of shutter-bugs to capture them for eternity. One year, I went to the Starlight Building next to the Ocean Terminal to have a look at the lights and was absolutely staggered to see the number of Hasselblad cameras (on tripod) around. It was easily the largest concentration of Hasselblad cameras ever wielded by amateurs. Shutter-bugs in HK may not have jet-skis, racing or mountain bikes, boats, fast cars but they definitely have very expensive cameras.

I suppose it makes sense because they don’t have the room to store these bulky ‘toys’ but they definitely have enough space to store their camera gear. Can anyone shed some light on my question?