With the counting down of three, two one, "and shouting of "Merry Christmas," more than 500,000 Hong Kong residents and tourists to Hong Kong gathered along the Victoria Harbor to celebrate the coming of Christmas Wednesday.

Another hundreds of thousands of people also went to the Christmas Wishing Tree at the Statue Square in Central District for enjoying sightseeing and photo taking. Christmas trees, lightings and decorations have given Hong Kong the best "night season" in the whole year.

In Tsim Sha Tsui's Harbor City, people could hardly move in and out of the famous shopping center since the evening came. Taking pictures with the Christmas decorations before shopping has become a fun for quite a number of Hong Kong people and travelers.

The Hong Kong Cultural Center is another good place for sightseeing. Even on a ferry boat, passengers could hear such classic music as "Green Sleeves" while spotting many flashes of cameras in just one second.

Hong Kong revelers, having Christmas red caps or other decorations on heads or long balloons in hands, relaxed themselves after the hard struggle against SARS and making much efforts for the economic recovery.

At Time Square, young people were singing and dancing with the singers and the square were crowded with people even after the midnight.

Drinking coffee, seeing films after midnight are the ways chosen by young people for spending the festival.

More than 2,000 police were on patrol in the entertainment areas.

Although more people joined the revelers forces this year, much less litter was collected in public areas.

According to a government press release Thursday, from 7:00 p.m. Wednesday to 6:00 a.m. Thursday, 2.4 tons of litter were cleaned up and collected at the Hong Kong Cultural Center (HKCC), among which 2.1 tons were collected from the rubbish bins and 300 kilograms from the ground, compared with 13 tons of rubbish collected in last year's Christmas night.

Six fixed penalty tickets were issued to littering offenders. Also, there were 569 verbal warnings and 1 summon on illegal hawking. No trees, sculptures and walls were found painted.

A Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) spokesman said Thursday "the Department stepped up measures against littering at the venue by putting up more banners and arranging on-site announcement regarding keeping clean appeal to visitors."

More departmental staff, security guards and cleansing staff were also deployed at the Cultural Center in Tsim Sha Tsui area.

He said that LCSD deployed 100 staff to patrol the venue. Special enforcement teams were formed with the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department that also had additional 100 staff in Tsim Sha Tsui area, to tackle the problems of littering and illegal hawking. The Police would also take necessary action against spray paint activities and vandalism.

More than 140 large and standard refuse bins were arranged to collect rubbish while 50 cleansing staff worked overnight to cleanup the venue.

As part of the community support, around 100 volunteers helped spread the message of care for our environment.

(Xinhua News Agency December 26, 2003)