AFP: On a mountain slope overlooking Hong Kong, Giovanni Lam waits for the right gust of wind to send him soaring skywards, one of a growing number of paragliders using flight to escape the dense urban sprawl below.
Patience is rewarded in paragliding, explained Lam, a university lecturer and youth counsellor who brought three novices and heavy equipment on a 40-minute mountain trail hike last month, with the group waiting two hours in the winter chill for the weather to turn. Once the clouds dispersed, revealing a rolling tapestry of parkland below, Lam ordered his tandem protege Keith Yung to walk against the wind as he pulled on lines attached to the canopy behind them. Within seconds, the glider caught the breeze and the duo took off. “Hong Kong is very crowded and there are always many people wherever you go… but once you are off in the sky, you are free,” Lam told AFP.
With most young Hong Kongers priced out of the city’s eye-watering property market — often living with parents in cramped flats well into their thirties — paragliding is one of a number of outdoor sports that offer release from the stress of the concrete jungle below.
Our time is a news portal