Departing couple photographs memories of Hong Kong - through MTR stations
Mark O'Leary and Aisling McDonnell, both Irish teachers aged 27, decided to take a light-hearted photographic look at 83 stations in the city's burgeoning MTR network.
A departing expat couple has come up with a novel way to keep their memories of Hong Kong on track.
Mark O'Leary and Aisling McDonnell, both Irish teachers aged 27, decided to take a light-hearted photographic look at 83 stations in the city's burgeoning MTR network.
"There are 83 stations in the HK metro system. I don't know if anyone has visited them all, and I'm even less sure if anyone has taken a picture at each one.
"But I do know there are at least two people that have done both - us!" the couple, who are leaving Hong Kong to return to Ireland, said on their blog.
On a venture that took almost a year, the couple tried to express the meaning of station names, some literally and others whimsically, with different poses and dress.
O'Leary posed as a navy chief at the Admiralty MTR, for example, and Long Ping MTR showed a brand of golf clubs.
In another shot, O'Leary wore a thong for the sound of Kowloon Tong, and Lok Fu was expressed with a Kung Fu picture sequence.
Other translations included Tai Wai MTR station, with O'Leary snapped with a phone in his hand - used to mimic the Cantonese word for hello - - and Tai Koo MTR became Tycoon.
However, Shau Kei Wan MTR and Hung Hom MTR eluded the couple's creative translations.
"In a break from my usual blogging, here's a little snippet from our Hong Kong life," they wrote on their blog.
"We lived in Hong Kong for three years and it will always hold a special place in our hearts, which is why I'm extra glad we took on this task and snapped all of these pictures - the perfect memento from our time here."
One exception to their lengthy MTR journey was the Racecourse MTR. "But it's only open on race days, so we couldn't go there," they said.
"I doubt we realised at the very beginning how many there actually were … in fact, they're building more as we speak, so we have an excuse to come back."
