Instagram 'em all: Must-snap locations testing Hong Kong's patience

For smartphone-wielding hordes of tourists, Hong Kong boasts a host of must-have Instagram locations — but crowds of snap-happy travellers are testing local patience and transforming once quaint pockets of the bustling metropolis.

Hong Kong's unique urban aesthetics — especially its public housing estates — have proved enormously popular to social media obsessives.

(Text from AFP) 

In recent years, daily throngs of tourists have relegated the card players to a dark corner of a residential courtyard.

While the building had long been a draw for street photographers and architecture enthusiasts, social media has helped turn it into a mass tourist attraction.

A sign warning against shooting photos and disturbing residents has done little to deter the chic travellers who usually form an orderly line to wait for a coveted spot in the middle of symmetrical blocks.

The buildings in Hong Kong's Quarry Bay are one of the city's best known residential complexes, famed for tightly-knit apartments towering above three sides of a thin courtyard.

A mural by local graffiti artist Alex Croft featuring rows of tenement houses draws a constant stream of tourists to the steeply sloping Graham Street in downtown Central district.
 

Taxis and cars honk restlessly as the tourists — primarily from mainland China, South Korea and Taiwan but also western nations — spill into the road to get their ideal frame seemingly oblivious to the safety issues. 

'We have seen a few people hit by cars and vans on Graham but they tend to be the Instagrammers who are transfixed on taking photos,' a local explains.

 

(Text from AFP)