A great little article on Hong Kong's rooftop shantytowns, a good inspiration for runners in Hong Kong.

Maybe I should go to Hamburg next week after all and have a look at this exhibition.

hmm, doctorows makers to the nth degree.

That looks kinda neat. Might have to convince someone to let me run in a Hong Kong like that.

is runner havens oop?

I think I recall hearing that it is, but don't quote me on that.

More Hong Kong inspiration. Scroll down about halfway for some great information on the Kowloon Walled City, including some videos on Youtube.

Plus, it has some bonus inspiration for other places!

After you posted that link I spent 20 hours straight researching Kowloon Walled City. I blame you.

However, during my searches I found a great deal of stuff about KWC that I didn't know. I'm not gonna post the info here, but, I am gonna post links to some of the better resources.

The KWC maps I found. Loaded into my photobucket here.

A site made by some japanese folks who explored KWC after it was evacuated, their grammer and spelling sucks, but they have some good stuff if you can suffer through it. Found here.

A SkyscraperPage.com forum thread on KWC that was started in 2004 and is still going. This has links, pics (though the ones at the beginning are all gone), and embeded videos galore! I read the whole thing, explored every link, and found a lot of good stuff. It's here.

Plus, there is a four-part documentary on Utube, but it's in German. Not a problem for some of you, I know, but it's still a good watch, even if you can't understand it.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4


Have fun, and try not to go crazy sifting through this stuff. Believe me when I tell you, If you go through all of this in one sitting, a SAN roll may be necessary.

Haha, I fully accept the blame. I spent at least that long researching the Walled City back when I was writing the Hong Kong material.

Also, awesome collection of links there.

I didn't realise you were the one who wrote the HK stuff. If you have any links to add to what I posted above I'd absolutely like to see them.

Also, I found a map to Hashima (Battleship) Island that shows the buildings and their uses, and will be adding it to my KWC album on photobucket shortly.

I've rebuilt my computer a few times since I wrote that piece; I'd have to go into my backups to find my collection of links. I'll have to see about doing that.

But I also spent a lot of time reading books about Hong Kong. I think during the process of writing that section of Runner Havens, I checked out about twenty-odd library books on Hong Kong, Triads, Chinese numerology, feng shui, etc. I know I managed to find one book that had a substantial section of the Kowloon Walled City, but I'll be damned if I can remember the title.

The book I've heard the most about is City of Darkness: Life in Kowloon Walled City by Girard and Lambot. I've heard it's hard to find though.