Hong Kong in orange and red

Most of these photos are pretty blurry, but this gives you an idea of HK's color scheme this time of year. The word for tangerine sounds like the word for "luck", so these little orange trees are everywhere -

And red, which is supposed to drive away bad luck and the legendary beast Nian -

At least, these are the explanations that Google gives me.

Also, here's what the streets of Tuen Mun looked like yesterday, the first day of Chinese New Year - eerily deserted:

It was like a "28 Days Later"/Chinese New Year crossover. No bumping into people on the street, no being blocked in by a group of 20 schoolgirls chattering and eating ice cream, no having the sidewalk blocked by an elderly couple walking side by side at .0025 km/hour... it was wonderful.

But headed into Central tonight for the festivities, which I'm pretty sure will be a different story.