WHEN IT COMES to pastimes, Hongkongers run to the usual suspects: karaoke, video games, television and football. They also have their share of unusual ones.
Tony Ng Cheuk-ho, 20, falls into the second category. Every weekend, his hobby takes him to a Tin Shui Wai car park and a rendezvous with his pride and joy: a big yellow double-decker bus. He washes it, drives it and admires it.
'The bus has its own life,' Ng says. 'Sometimes it's grumpy. Sometimes when I drive it to the other side to wash it, it's very happy and moves smoothly.' Whatever its 'mood', he treats his bus as a friend.
His interest may sound weird, but he's not alone. There are about 15 private bus owners in Hong Kong, according to 22-year-old salesman Eddie Wong King-him, who owns an ex-China Motor Bus.
Local bus collecting started in the early 1990s when bus companies began retiring non-air conditioned models. The process accelerated in 1998 when New World First Bus took over Hong Kong Island routes from China Motor Bus, launching a mass replacement programme. Other companies followed suit.
According to local bus companies, some retired Kowloon Motor Bus (KMB) vehicles are sold to England as school buses, and some former China Motor Bus (CMB) vehicles go to Australia as open-top tourist buses, but most wind up in scrap yards.