What's difficult to capture, even if one has a wider lens than mine, is the sheer, overwhelming verticality of Hong Kong. Walking down the street, you can easily slip into a horizontal world view- finding it not too much different than any other megacity. But should you look up- or go up and look down- you will often be hit by a sense of density and mystery that even Manhattan may have a hard time competing with. It's as if you scattered every type of zoning imaginable, grew them a thousand feet tall and mixed them up again.

Even sitting on a roof 200 meters up, I was surrounded by constructions impregnable to casual understanding.