Waterloo Road
In Hong Kong, Waterloo Road is synonymous with wealth, mostly because it bisects Kowloon Tong, one of the city’s most exclusive neighbourhoods. Parts of the road are lined with comfortable-looking upper-middle-class highrises, others by boxy, gargantuan villas that look like they are about to explode beyond their property lines. (“That house is owned by the richest Indian family in Hong Kong,” my girlfriend’s dad said one day, as our taxi passed through Kowloon Tong. “Look at all the satellite dishes! They use them to watch TV shows from India.”) You might expect it to be something like Park Avenue in New York, an elegant, tiresomely prim street, but it is in fact a virtual expressway: six lanes of speeding traffic spanned by footbridges, overpasses and highway signs. It might actually be the most suburban part of Hong Kong, if only because, for all its prestige, there is no there there.
Tags: Exploring the City, Hong Kong, Kowloon
