Visitors to Hong Kong's new wetland park will immediately be struck by a stark contrast.
As they gaze across the park's 61-hectare expanse, their eyes will also be caught by the soaring residential blocks of neighbouring Tin Shui Wai.
The sight will be a reminder of how the Hong Kong International Wetland Park came to be - as an environmental trade-off for the bulldozing of vast areas of fish ponds to make way for the Tin Shui Wai development 20 years ago.
The park, which uses recycled materials befitting its environmental credentials, offers visitors both artificial indoor experiences and real outdoor ones.
At the visitor centre, the Living Wetlands gallery takes the public to the 'frozen north', where they can explore a large tundra model. The temperature in the gallery is kept at 18 degrees Celsius to ensure a suitably chilly environment.
Visitors to the gallery will then enter the 28 degree 'tropical swamp' forest, where they will hear and see artificial animals on models of huge peat-swamp trees. Four real crocodiles - false gharials native to Thailand - will become the swamp's first residents.
Visitors to the living wetlands gallery can move on to 'Hong Kong's wetland', where they can learn about the city's indigenous wildlife.
