Sunday, July 16, 2006

HongKong Visit

This was my first visit to Hong Kong and I was really pleasantly surprised. Everything was very organized, and very clean. It was almost like a bigger Singapore, but with more high risers. We traveled every where on the sub way (called MTR) it was really easy to get around and cheap. They had a smart card called the Octopus card that made cash handling a real breeze. It could be used in busses, MTRs and even most grocery shops. It saved me from returning home with a pocket full of HK coins that I may never use again.

What amazed us most was the way how in which people were really organized. People always walked on the left "lane" when walking inside the MTR station. The stations had elevators, which had been divided into two lanes with a white line in between. The left lane was for people who were lazy to climb the steps, while the right was for people who were in a hurry.

Our main goal was shopping, which was a bit of a disappointment. Everything was very expensive. We did find a lot of counterfeit clothes, but they weren't as cheap as you would find in Bangkok or Singapore. I had big aspirations of being able to buy some really cool electronic gadgets. However, the mp3 player in particular that I wanted to purchase was almost the same price as what I would get in New Zealand. So I was really disappointed.

I did manage to take some interesting photos while we were there: Link